Last week, Marcia and I attended three cultural events around the City.
The first one was at Daniels Spectrum on Dundas Street East.
This new venue was rebuilt as part of the Regent Park development project.
Not only is it a community centre, but a work space, gallery and an exhibit space.
Earlier this month, I acquired free tickets for "Fractured Land" and "Keepers of the Water", which was part of the "Water Docs".
So, on Tuesday, we braved the rain, and enjoyed two documentaries. Afterwards, there was some free appetizers for the film goers.
On Wednesday, we had lunch at the New Yorker Deli, and then walked over to the Gardiner Museum. I had a MAP (Museum and Arts Pass) from the Toronto Library, so this visit was free.
Since we arrived just before 2 o'clock, we were able to take advantage of the FREE guided tour.
The exhibit was called "Beneath the Surface".
According to our guide, there was a flood that exposed a host of artifacts on the banks of the Rio Grande Coclé
in Panama around 1940.
Some of these artifacts were an display at the Museum.
Then on Thursday, we enjoyed a free documentary called "Painted Land: In Search of the Group of Seven", at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema.
This film chronicled the travels by train, canoe and by foot of four people in Northern Ontario who searched for the exact spots where some of the Group of Seven painters (Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, J.E.H. MacDonald, R.H. Thomson, Arthur Lismer and A.J. Carson) had stopped to sketch the Canadian landscapes.
This is the poster from the film.
The painting is titled "Solemn Land, Algoma" by J.E.H. MacDonald.
Well, I think we had our fill of "Culture" for this week.
The nice part was not needing to spend a lot of money for our outings.
The Aga Khan Museum opened in September of 2014, and both Marcia and I decided we needed to visit this new place.
This is an aerial view of the cultural centre located in Don Mills.
Once again the Toronto Library gave us passes (MAP) to the Museum.
The building itself was designed by Fumihiko Maki, while the surrounding garden was designed by Vladimir Djurovic.
"The architect (F. Maki) used light as his inspiration by ensuring that light was ever-present in the building".
Quote is from the Aga Khan web site.
The landscape designer, on the other hand, based the garden on a traditional Persian and Mughal (a four part garden).
Beyond the edges of the formal garden is a park area with Silver Birch, Magnolia and Aspens, to name a few.
A lot of the shrubs and plants are favourites of our local birds and will attract butterflies, as well as honey bees.
This will give you an idea of the Museum and the reflecting pond.
Inside, we were greeted by a chatty Muslim woman, who gave us some idea of the current exhibits that we could see.
This is a picture I took of a huge Persian rug in one of the exhibit rooms.
Here we have a beggar's bowl (Kashkul).
It is a beautifully engraved ceremonial object with dragon heads at each end.
It was used by wandering mystics, who had renounced all of their worldly possessions and subsisted only on alms.
I tried to get a picture of these two ceramic birds, but it did not turn out.
So I nabbed it from cyberspace.
All in all we were suitably impressed with not only the artifacts and the building, but also the surrounding landscape. We both agreed that we should visit again, since they do change the exhibits, much like other museums.
They also do tours (for a price), Check the web site for any more info.
