New Public Art Transforms 10 Connected Toronto-Area Cemeteries Into an Outdoor Museum

Space for Grief and Mount Pleasant Group mark 200 years with site-specific art, sound, archives and participatory installations across 10 GTA cemeteries.

TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, September 8, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Mount Pleasant Group and Space for Grief™ have created a free outdoor museum across 10 cemeteries in the Greater Toronto Area, bringing together public art, nature and two centuries of local history.

Created to commemorate Mount Pleasant Group’s 200th anniversary, Yesterday. Today. Forever. features site-specific installations throughout 2026, with select components continuing into 2027. Drawing on archives, architecture, landscapes and community histories, the project includes sculptures made from reclaimed doors, projection, original soundscapes, participatory Memory Gardens and museum-style outdoor storytelling. Visitors can contribute remembrances, leave reflections in a public guestbook and explore how individual lives and changing communities have shaped the region.

“Yesterday. Today. Forever. is not art simply placed in a cemetery; it grows from the histories, landscapes and memories already held there,” said Ziyan Hossain, co-founder and creative director of Method Collective and Space for Grief. “These sites hold two centuries of Toronto: its people, migrations, architecture, ecology and generations of care. At the centre of the bicentennial is a public question: what do we carry forward? We want visitors to experience history not as something fixed behind glass, but as something they can walk through, listen to, feel and help shape.”

Each installation responds to its location and surrounding communities. Research and interpretation, informed by Indigenous consultation, span Indigenous histories and enduring relationships with the land, Toronto’s growth, successive migrations and contemporary diaspora traditions. Together, the works reveal cemeteries not only as places of mourning, but as civic landscapes where personal memory, public history, nature and collective storytelling meet.

Plan your Visit

Yesterday. Today. Forever. is open across all 10 Mount Pleasant Group cemeteries, with locations in Toronto, North York, Scarborough, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Brampton, Pickering and Oshawa. Flagship installations are at Mount Pleasant Cemetery and Toronto Necropolis. Daily hours are August 18 to October 31, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.; November 1 to March 31, 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Details, maps and visitor information: mpg200.ca/installations.

10 landscapes, 5 ways to encounter memory

Cross a doorway from Toronto’s past: Mount Pleasant and Prospect cemeteries
- Reclaimed doors from buildings across the GTA stand without walls as walk-through sculptures, inviting reflection on what we leave behind, what we carry forward and how everyday places hold memory.

Enter a memory in motion: We Remembered the Monoliths, Toronto Necropolis
- Stacked white forms become a canvas for moving images of forests, oceans and cityscapes, accompanied by an original soundscape led by Ziyan Hossain. The work incorporates footage by BBC Planet Earth III contributor Justin Blake and music collaborations with guitarist Plini, engineer and producer Henry Reinach, and writer and activist Sandy Hudson.

Leave a message in the Memory Gardens: York, Meadowvale and Thornton cemeteries
- Inside garden-like structures draped in greenery, visitors can write to someone, or something, they have lost. Messages displayed on translucent bird-shaped cards gather into layered murmurations, creating a collective artwork in many voices and languages.

Watch perspective change: Murmuration, Pine Hills Cemetery
- Translucent birds shift in colour with daylight and the viewer’s position. Flying together, they evoke the many communities connected through Mount Pleasant Group and reflect how shared experiences can look different depending on where we stand.

Discover 200 years of city history: all 10 locations
- Museum-style outdoor signage creates a self-guided journey through the region’s history. Historical timelines, archival photographs and reflective prompts connect individual lives with migration, architecture, public health, ecology and the region’s continuing evolution.

About Method Collective & Space for Grief

Method Collective is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary studio. It combines systems thinking, strategic foresight, life-centred design and art-based methods to help organizations navigate complex change. Space for Grief™ is Method Collective’s public art and research lab exploring how cities and institutions make room for loss, memory and human connection through art, research and civic practice. Learn more at spaceforgrief.com/yesterday-today-forever and mpg200.ca/installations.

About Mount Pleasant Group

Established in 1826, Mount Pleasant Group is a non-profit organization providing cemetery, funeral and cremation services across the Greater Toronto Area. Its network includes 10 non-denominational cemeteries, nine funeral centres and four cremation centres.

Media assets and backgrounder can be found here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1C7a4rmz6DXZYxRdv5Ax9Zib3M4yM89oi

Fran Quintero Rawlings
Method Collective & Space for Grief
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