The Sky is Falling | DesignTO 2020
Opening Reception Jan 16, 6-8pm
Tear down and poetry event February 14 11am-6pm
Knife Fork Book at Artscape Youngplace
180 Shaw Street, Mezzanine Level
Visual artist, designer and poet Jessica Hiemstra will create an abstracted paper sky on the ceiling of Toronto’s only all-poetry bookstore, Knife Fork Book. Using watercolour paper, thread and washes of hand-made Genzah watercolour paint, Hiemstra’s sky is one that is torn and sewn back together. This sky has tangled stitching, punctures, long dangling threads, and fragments of poetry sewn into it. Independent bookstores and especially those that specialize in theatre, poetry, music and art are becoming rarer and rarer. Knife Fork Book is an ephemeral place. It continues to exist because its sky continues to be held together by delicate threads.
On Friday February 14th Jessica’s Hiemstra’s beloved DesignTO Festival installation (and love-letter to poets), "The Sky is Falling”, is coming down. Jessica will be on site at Knife Fork Book, Canada’s only ALL POETRY bookstore, removing the watercolour sky, piece by piece. Fragments of the sky will be on sale for $25-$85; Jessica will stitch and pin poems into the panels as they are removed from the ceiling. For the first 30 people, there will also be roses. If you have a love-poem you want written out, if you want a piece of the sky to be your love-poem, if you want to give yourself a piece of sky, please come: the sky is yours. Also: 40% of sales will go to directly to Knife Fork Book, the independent bookstore with a giant heart.
Photos and Video by Paul Esposti.
