Most artists have it pretty easy. They stick to the safe confines of the studio, wrestling only with personal demons and manageable media before delivering their work into a carefully controlled environment designed expressly for the protection of their baby. The gallery, from its architecture to the behaviors it entrenches, serves as a fortification to the chaos of the real world. Like many things we accept as natural, we only realize how artificial it is when it’s gone. 
Marlon Griffith, Ring of Fire, 2015
Trinidadian artist Marlon Griffith abandoned the shelter of art world institutions this past Sunday to bring his creation to the masses with nothing less than a parade curated by Emelie Chhangur of the Art Gallery of York University that made its way down University Avenue from the bottom of Queen’s Park to Toronto’s City Hall. In that short distance, the artist and his dozens of collaborators had to contend with weather (it was hot), costumes (all of which were rooted in the Caribbean Carnival “mas” tradition, some of which involved extended appendages), disabilities (which many of the participants had), traffic (which was only temporarily blocked in a city with chronic gridlock), lack of context (most of the people in those cars had no idea what was going on), scale (given the size of the procession, there was no way to experience it all), and the inevitable entropy that occurs when the surrounding ambience overwhelms the experience (without white walls, the artist must work against the city itself). However, given the craziness of the endeavor as well as the event, it came off. For a brief moment, an unlikely ritual was held amid the hustle, bustle, and ennui of urban life. For a fraction of the day, there was art in the world. 
Marlon Griffith, Ring of Fire, 2015
The parade’s final destination was a cultural event celebrating the opening of the Parapan Am Games. Griffith’s inclusion of people with disabilities alongside indigenous groups (particularly the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation) and youth groups representing the diversity of Toronto (from Capoeira dancers to spoken word poets) was meant as an act of solidarity and a play on the possible meanings of accessibility. Part of me hesitated at the conflation of such disparate communities, but in the end I accepted the gumbo of cultural resistance as a gesture of inclusion. Parades are rarely homogeneous entities even when they’re intended as demonstrations of unity. They serve as a great metaphor of movement (both political and literal), of the mixed-up masses, of disruption, and of celebration (not to mention masquerade and the wonders of self-representation). My hat is off to Griffith and his collaborators for their perseverance in making this one happen.
Art Gallery of York University: http://www.theagyuisoutthere.org/rofire/
Marlon Griffith: Ring of Fire took place on August 9.
Terence Dick is a freelance writer living in Toronto. His art criticism has appeared in Canadian Art, BorderCrossings, Prefix Photo, Camera Austria, Fuse, Mix, C Magazine, Azure, and The Globe and Mail. He is the editor of Akimblog. You can follow his quickie reviews and art news announcements on Twitter @TerenceDick.
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Marlon Griffith at the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto
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