This installation is made up of many separate pieces which all come together to form a campsite from the past. The sculpture centres around a large covering, which looks like a tarp or the top of a tent, which is tied down by guide wires to eight granite posts on each side of the sideless tent. Under this open roof/tent is a large table with assorted things that depict what lives might have been like then, there is a map of the area and a painting done done by Elizabeth Simcoe. As you walk around this sculpture and look at all the different elements you get a feel for what it could have been like to live in these conditions a few centuries ago.
This is one of the featured works of art (#7) in The City of Toronto's Art Walk - Toronto's Outdoor Art Gallery.
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"Campsite Founding
Brad Golden and Lynne Eichenberg, 1994
Campsite Founding commemorates the contributions of Governor John Graves Simcoe and Elizabeth Simcoe to the establishment of Upper Canada, now the Province of Ontario, in 1791, and subsequently York, now the City of Toronto.
Located in Simcoe Park, the multi-component installation reads as a visual and text-based historical narrative. The covered portion refers to the canvas house, also depicted and described on a plaque, which served as a base from which the Simcoes embarked upon their forays into the surrounding environs.
The surface of the cast bronze table is inscribed with an early map of Toronto and the pyramid-like cairn and basin evoke the natural landscape of Lake Ontario and the Niagara escarpment. Together these elements contextualize and describe the geography, the circumstances and conditions around the time of the founding of Toronto."