Brain-themed art project around the city aims to get you thinking

The Brain Project runs all summer with the goal of raising more than $2 million Alzheimer’s and dementia research at Baycrest Health Sciences.

Thestar.com
June 14, 2016
By Christoper Reynolds

Brain slice

Nathan Phillips Square pond, Queen St. W. and Bay St.

Called Concussion, this laser-cut artwork is inspired by the use of scans to visualize the brain as a diagram. Toronto-based artist Michael Truelove, who has suffered from concussions, sliced this data to present cross-sections, finishing the piece in a copper sulphate patina. Inspired by New York City’s Faberge Big Egg Hunt, the broader project is the brainchild of Noah’s Godfrey’s wife, Erica. “Who comes up with this insanity?” he says. “My wife comes up with this insanity.”

Bright mind

Nathan Phillips Square (east side), Queen St. W. and Bay St.

Toronto designer Kris Jackson covered half of this brain with unglued black Bunchems - small toy balls with squishy, interlocking spikes - to represent the darkness that can envelop memory and imagination during dementia and Alzheimer’s. All the black Bunchems can be removed, allowing the interactive piece to return to a “healthy, colourful, symmetrical state,” Jackson’s project profile states.

Grey matter

Union Station, Front St. W. and Bay St.

Toronto artist Ekow Nimako showcases the building blocks of the brain with Lego. His lifelong infatuation with robots, spaceships “and anything related to futuristic modes of transportation” drew him to Duplo-esque art, his profile states. But his focus isn’t fun and games; as the population ages, the number of Canadians suffering from neurodegenerative diseases is expected to climb to 1.4 million in 2031 from 750,000 in 2011.

Mental roots

RioCan, Yonge St. and Eglinton Ave. W.

This organic environment could symbolize the nourishment demanded by the brain or cell regeneration in certain areas. Or it could contrast the renewal of nature with the slow deterioration of the human body, says Canadian-born artist Uno Hoffmann. With Alzheimer’s and dementia, which hinder thinking and memory, “the signposts that help us navigate our life are irreversibly reduced to an abstraction and eventually disappear.”