Carrie Perreault: We Must Love and Support One Another

Carrie Perreault, Installation view, We Must Love and Support One Another, 2025, Site-specific installation, 36″ x 1320″ Photo: Rémi Carreiro

We Must Love and Support One Another
A Weston Community Public Art Project

Installation on view through September 14, 2025
Raymore Park, 93 Raymore Drive, Etobicoke, ON M9P 1W8

We Must Love and Support One Another is a 110-foot-long text-based installation currently on view in Raymore Park, in Toronto’s Weston neighbourhood. Embedded in the chain-link fence that runs alongside the Humber River, the artwork features the words of 15-year-old Elizabeth Thorogood: “My favourite thing about this place is the magic water space.” In her original sign, the first three words—My favourite thing—were drawn in linked bubble letters filled with gold glitter. The final design preserves that detail, mimicking her shape, style, and palette to amplify her vision at a monumental scale.

The installation emerged from a series of community art-making workshops held in the park earlier this spring. Neighbours gathered under the trees to create signs and banners about what they love and what they hope for. Youth, families, adults, and seniors came together in a shared space to make bold, expressive works—a collection of individual declarations shaped by shared sentiment. As filmmaker Guillermo del Toro wrote, “Optimism is radical. It is the hard choice, the brave choice. And it is, it seems to me, most needed now, in the face of despair—” The installation holds that spirit, offering a small but public gesture of presence and hope.

Carrie Perreault, a multidisciplinary practitioner and long-time Weston resident, developed the project. Her practice explores care, memory, and the quiet politics of everyday spaces and objects. Rooted in sculpture, installation, and community engagement, her work often begins with close observation of materials, people, and the patterns that form between them. Raymore Park is a place she moves through year-round, a constant in a shifting neighbourhood. This piece continues her interest in placemaking as a form of attention—an effort to mark the presence of those who pass through, pause, and return. It’s also an act of listening: to the river, to each other, and to how small gestures of care might ripple outward.

The work was realized with the support of Amana (AJ) Park, an art practitioner and workshop facilitator, and Percy Eriamiator, a Nigerian-born multidisciplinary artist working across creative direction, photography, and textile art. Together, the team facilitated workshops and installed the site-specific artwork that celebrates the everyday relationships between people and place.

Carrie Perreault, Installation view, We Must Love and Support One Another, 2025, Site-specific installation, 36″ x 1320″ Photo: Rémi Carreiro

About the Artists

Carrie Perreault is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans sculpture, installation, printmaking, and socially engaged projects that explore memory, resilience, and the politics of everyday life. Recent exhibitions include Pacing the House at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery and period of adjustment at the NAC, accompanied by essays from Sky Goodden and Lucy R. Lippard. She is currently in residence at Studio Céramique Alexandra in Montreal, focusing on ceramic exploration. Perreault is also developing Vol. 3 of The Artist Cookbook, a collaborative project featuring artists from across so-called Canada that explores food, memory, and shared experience. Vol. 1 & 2 featured 101 artists and supported a national fundraiser for FoodShare Toronto. In 2021, she was awarded Best of Fair at the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair.
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Amana Park (AJ) is an art practitioner who uses multiple art mediums to promote collective healing. Each practice branches from the root of her poetry: authenticity and vulnerability. She facilitates events and workshops across Toronto (@aj.prk), curating spaces where community can gather to experience art in shared presence.

Percy Eriamiator is a Nigerian-born multidisciplinary artist working across creative direction, photography, and textile art. Drawing on personal experience and community connections, her work transforms emotions into visual storytelling. In 2024, she debuted her first solo exhibition, FEELS, using primary colours to evoke and explore emotional states. Percy also curates exhibitions and community events with Art Show Hub (@artshowhub), creating platforms for emerging artists to showcase their work.

Carrie Perreault, Installation view, We Must Love and Support One Another, 2025, Site-specific installation, 36″ x 1320″ Photo: Rémi Carreiro

About Weston

Raymore Park sits along the Humber River, a waterway that has carried stories, trade, and life for thousands of years. This land has long been home to the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. It is a place shaped by layered histories, migration, and resilience.

This project acknowledges that the park remains Indigenous land. It honours the continued presence of Indigenous Peoples and expresses gratitude for the opportunity to gather here, learn from the land, and reflect on how communities care for it—and one another. Today, people from many lands call this area home, and they come to the river with that same spirit.

Image Descriptions:
1. A vibrant text installation runs along a chain-link fence in a tree-lined park. It reads, “MY FAVOURITE THING ABOUT THIS PLACE IS THE MAGIC WATER SPACE,” with each word made from colourful plastic squares.
2. A mid-shot of a text installation on a chain-link fence reads, “ABOUT THIS PLACE IS THE MAGIC WATER SPACE.” Set along a tree-lined path, colourful plastic squares blend into the greenery by the Humber River.
3. A close-up of the fence installation shows “THE MAGIC WATER” spelled out with colourful plastic squares.

The project was funded by the Ontario Arts Council, with major support from Castlepoint Numa. Neighbours and community partner Urban Arts kept us dry during a rainy workshop, and AER Event Rentals supplied tables and chairs throughout the three weeks. Heartfelt thanks to the community for their ongoing enthusiasm and guardianship of the project.