Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

A World Stopping Nuit Blanc Installation by Director X By Stephen Weir: Spoiler Alert! Everyone dies, including the Sun, in Director X’s new art installation Life of the Earth and Death of the Sun.  On Saturday night and early Sunday morning, as part of the Nuit Blanche festival, the Ontario Science Centre stayed open to show-off Director X’s latest creation. Set in a large open space inside a lower level   gallery a huge white balloon hangs from the ceiling.   Using large-scale projectors, the orb becomes first a rotating and aging planet Earth and then it is our Sun evolving and eventually dying. Both the Earth and the Sun are shown as if seen from space moving from the past to real time and into a not so great future.   On a near by wall a huge LED display’s     charts the collapse of the sun and show pictures of life on earth from the beginning of time, to now. Throughout the night people trickled into the exhibition space, sitting on on the floor and leanin

Harlem Resto Is About To Be Laid To Rest   By Stephen Weir:  What a difference a week makes. Last week the Caribbean Camera was telling readers about how Carl Cassell provided a Jamaica fundraising group the run of his Harlem restaurant and now we are reporting on the demise of one of Toronto’s few downtown Black cuisine restaurant. In message forwarded to the paper, Cassell said that his Harlem Underground on Queen Street West was turning 10 years old on November 9 th .  “To celebrate this auspicious occasion, we have decided to close the restaurant.  “ “Over the last decade Harlem Underground has been an epicentre of black food and culture within the downtown core,” said Cassell. “The decision to close comes not from the restaurant itself, as I continue to be supported by the community at large, but from a personal need to see other creative endeavours grow. Part restaurant. Part music hall. 100% a world destination.  Inspired by New York City’s Harlem Renaissance of the

FINAL TOUCHES MADE ON THE MANDELA WALL Signs - Mandela Exhibition In North Toronto By Stephen Weir : Dusting. Straightening.  Turning on the museum lights. The final touches on the exhibition MANDELA are being made in preparation for today's official opening!  The doors will open to the public after lunch for MANDELA, a blockbuster-touring exhibition created by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. It is all happening in North Toronto at the Meridian Arts Centre 5040 Yonge St, the show runs till January 5 th  2020. Mandela in Toronto - Toronto Star photo For show goers, a wall of battered “whites only” signs is the first thing you see as you enter the exhibition. Be prepared for what is described as a  “rich sensory experience of imagery, soundscape, digital media and objects!” This multi-media exhibition has been created in collaboration with the South Africa’s Apartheid Museum. MANDELA explores Nelson Mandela’s fight for justice and

Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Was A Last Minute No Show At His Own Reception  (But His Staff Knew He Never Made The Plane) By Stephen Weir  It wasn’t a good sign. An hour late, no one was at the Jamaica Canadian Association Hall microphone and reporters waiting to meet Jamaica’s Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, received another round of free drinks. A few minutes later, members of the minister’s advance team took to the podium to say that the Minister was tied up at the Pearson airport and was expected to speak at 8pm – an hour and half after he was suppose to. It was a planned reception that Bartlett had invited prominent Canadian Jamaicans, travel experts and the media to attend in North Toronto.   He wanted to brief Canada on the bullish state of tourism in Jamaica. When the Reception finally started it was announced that the Minister would not be appearing and apparently he never had intended to show up at all! A video made the day before was played

The roof leaks. There hasn’t been power for years. Jamaican school about to get some World Class Jamaican Help. sweir article in Caribbean Camera Last week a group of a 100 like-minded caring Caribbean Canadians gathered at the downtown Harlem Restaurant to help the students of  St. Theresa’s Basic School   in Jamaica. The evening fundraiser featured a panel discussion aptly called Barefoot to Boardroom and Beyond. “The title says it all.  Barefoot to Boardroom describes a lot of people on our panel and in the room, be they from Jamaica or anywhere else in the Caribbean,” said Leap Agent’s Michael Carter, the evening host. “ We have targeted a school that needs infrastructure help and that is something we can do!” World Class Jamaica was formed in Toronto back in 2016 by people who have come from the Caribbean and done well here in Canada.  Headed by Heather Ricketts, a director with the building company, Metrie,  the group has been focusing on fixing and upgrading Jam