Yesterday, on a frigid Toronto January afternoon, I got a bit joyfully obsessed with a cement floor.
The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery has been around on the Toronto Harbourfront scene since 1987 but I’d somehow never managed to visit. On Sunday, my intention was to check out the nearby Museum of Toronto’s current exhibition, Mr. Dressup to Degrassi: 42 Years of Legendary Toronto Kids TV (through March 29, 2026).
Waiting for Museum to open (and also, honestly, seeking warmth), I finally ventured into The Power Plant, where the ongoing exhibition is Indigenous artist Jeneen Frei Njootli’s The skies closed themselves when we averted our gaze (through March 22, 2026).
Inside, amongst the art pieces, I happened to notice that in places the small cracks in the gallery’s cement floor were filled with tiny blue beads. What unexpected beauty (I’m fond of beads and beading, as I’ve mentioned before)! Was this part of the exhibition, I wondered?
I asked the nearby docent who told me that it was… just before I got to the wall of the gallery which actually had an explanatory sign (hah) saying, “In a performance during the opening days of the exhibition [on November 8, 2025], Frei Njootli played a violin they made in 2014 from the antler of a female caribou, harvested by the artist’s family. […] Colourful glass beads also remain as a residue of this moment, left behind by the artist and their small son, who scattered beads around the exhibition, filling the cracks and crevices of the gallery floor.”
So there’s the explanation. Something about the idea of this utilitarian floor, which has seen so many exhibitions and so much foot traffic, being embellished in an accidentally / on purpose way just caught my fancy. I was reminded of the Japanese practice of kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with (seams of) gold. Luckily, there were few other visitors as I stooped low observing and taking pictures… of the floor, not the artwork.
So many questions. What was the context of the use and distribution of the beads during the performance? How do they clean the gallery floor, especially with the salty boots of Toronto winter, without dislodging the beads? Will they remove the beads for the next exhibition (I expect so)?
Incidentally, I did enjoy the rest of the exhibition, especially a large image of the impression of beadwork on skin.
As I left the gallery, having spent so long looking down, I was tickled to notice the turquoise blue de-icer pebbles on the paving stones outside, deposited in response to the recent snowstorm. Are these cracks full of blue translucent pieces beautiful too? I’ll have to think about that.
