GROUP ENLISTS ARTISTS TO PROTECT ESCARPMENT

An environmental organization fighting to preserve areas of the Niagara Escarpment under threat of development is tapping into the power of art to deliver its message.

The Escarpment Corridor Alliance (EAC) is hosting a show called "Escarpment/Erasure" that features the work of members of the Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) and the Broken Forests collective.

ECA president Bruce Harbinson said the show is intended to build awareness about the impact development could have on the environmentally sensitive brow of the escarpment. George Knowles's farm at the corner of the Blue Mountains 4th line and Grey Road 19 will host the show until July 10.

"There has always been a pretty big link between arts and culture and the environment," Harbinson said. "A major source of inspiration (for art) has always been the environment."

Michael Belmore, an Anishinaabe artist whose work can be found in the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario, produced "Rumble" for the show. The two-sided copper piece represents the sky and underground realms.

"It is important we understand where we live and how we live on the land," he said. "We live with a delicate existence between the other extremes, and we have to be very conscious of that."

The ECA launched in early 2022 with a mandate to lobby against development on the escarpment and for the creation of an interconnected corridor of parks and protected natural spaces.

In particular, it has voiced its opposition to the Castle Glen project, which could see the development of more than 1,600 homes, a hotel and three golf courses on the escarpment.

A survey conducted by EAC drew more than 3,000 responses — including 1,000 from residents of the Town of The Blue Mountains — that indicated overwhelming support that development be directed away from Castle Glen, Talisman and the Silver Creek wetlands.