Back in February, artist Michael Burtt heard that Brampton Library would be a great place to make art - and so he made his inaugural visit to Bramalea GO Station. The first things he noticed when he arrived were big, busy roads, large vehicles...but also park space, pathways, and benches. This got Michael thinking of all the hidden places in our City, and inspired him to create a project that could explore this concept creatively.

After visiting our Chinguacousy Branch, Michael fell in love with our space and decided that the library would be the ideal venue for his new project.

So, what is this new project?

Michael says, “The Secret Rivers project is about exploring the rivers that brought people to Bramalea, to Brampton. This could be from wherever they come from in the world, other places in Canada...but I’m also interested in the secret rivers, walkways, and pathways that get them from their apartments to the library, to the park. So we are learning about these things.”

In his initial visits to our library, Michael introduced the idea of paper weaving, using different coloured strips of paper and stamps to capture the answers to the following simple questions:

1. What is an object that you brought with you to this place?
2. What is the place that you left to come here?
3. What is one place that is special to you, and maybe to nobody else, in this space? It could be a bench, a tree, a corner, etc.

Participants then wove these personalized strips through a large loom that Michael created, to combine with other people’s answers and create a beautiful story, represented visually. The result was stunning.

The larger Secret Rivers Project will involve paper weaving mixed with audio recording to create a very large weave that will hopefully be installed in the library space in September.

Michael encourages all of our customers - adults, kids to come and participate in this project, share their stories with us and their families, and be a part of this beautiful creative process, presented by Making Room Community Arts.  

Interested? The program runs every Tuesday and Friday afternoon at Chinguacousy branch until September 7th - details in our calendar.