Gigi Grant

Gigi Grant is an artist, project leader, and community organizer activating beauty and creation to bring forward social change.

About

Major Projects:

163 Queen East Health Justice Hub
Leading SPRE Development and Community Hub for HIV+ and Displaced Peoples

Unity Kitchen Toronto
Developing a Street Level Resource Center for Houseless Peoples in Downtown Toronto

Church of the Holy Trinity
Renewing the identity and legacy of a 180 year old church dedicated to social justice

Prisoners’ Justice and Support
Building justice, compassion and alternatives to incarceration through community development and arts creation.

Toronto Homeless Memorial
Leading Toronto’s monthly community ritual and advocacy pillar remembering the lives of houseless peoples.

Interventions, installations and Publications:

Festival of Shelter
Unity Recycled Textile Printing
Voices of Women For Peace Service
Disappearing Space Poster
Jane Doe Wheatpaste
Memorial Tiles
175 Anniversary Book and Collages
Service Bulletins
Encampment Wreath
Ascension Poem and Photos
An Anarchist Response to HIV/HCV Design
HIV Criminalization Advocacy

Artworks

Jane Doe Wheatpaste

The Jane Doe Wheatpaste was a community art intervention mounted on the exterior wall of Church of the Holy Trinity, adjacent to the entrance of the Toronto Eaton’s Center. This poem by Don Weitz, a founding member of the Toronto Homeless Memorial, was used to highlight the ongoing murder of Indigenous women, girls and two-spirited peoples- especially those living on the streets of Canada’s major cities. The work was mounted in the fall of 2022, which marked record breaking deaths in the shelter and shelter hotel system, and the intentional arson of a tent shared by 2 Indigenous women near to the site of installation. The work was produced by members of the Trinity Square encampment.

---

JANE DOE

you froze to death at 30 below

Your sisters sunstroked at 40 above

no respite, no warming, no cooling centre to care or love

in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa the RCMP, cops, and mayors, don't seem to care,  if they ever did nobody stopped to give you a loonie or dime in rain, snow, sleet, in the wind or sunshine nobody stopped to touch, to say "hi" or hello don't ya know, don't ya know, don't ya know crowded shelters turned you away while mayors, councillors, ministers lied brothers, friends, shouted loud and long.

"She's gone. She's lost," sisters cried and cried no justice, no peace, no safety, no home Your kids never found, lost to suicide while ministers committed genocide
You barely survived third world welfare no heat, no clean water, no healthcare

Jane Doe you died, alone, stigmatized racialized-traumatized-criminalized nameless, homeless, no direction home nameless, homeless, no direction home

Missing, Murdered Women, and Girls on stolen lands no justice, no peace, for Native bands lane Doe, Jane Doe, where are you now tell us, where you, must be found Your spirit rising like the phoenix like a smoke signal rising from sacred ground

Justice, peace, reconciliation, truth wherever found lie deep, deep, asleep, in Mother Earth too scorched, too damaged, to give birth
Jane Doe, Jane Doe, nameless, homeless, tell us your name

By Don Weitz (1930-2021)