Our Park 2025: Learning from Mushroom
Our Park returns in 2025 with Learning from Mushroom, a city-wide public art initiative exploring what mycelial growth can teach us about community, resilience, and connection. Inspired by how mushrooms create rich ecosystems through decay and interdependence, this year’s program asks how material culture is made—through local ecologies, immigrant histories, and collective care.
Rooted in Markham’s complex ecological and infrastructural context—including its relationship to Lake Ontario, the Rouge Valley, and the shared water systems of the Greater Toronto Area—the 2025 program unfolds across multiple sites and events, each shaped by collaborative, cross-cultural making.
Launched in 2022, Our Park brings artist-led programming to under-invested areas of Markham using a retrofit model to animate existing park infrastructure. Its first iteration supported contemporary dancer Zeo Kwan’s community-engaged project at Ada Mackenzie Park.
In 2025, the program continues at Milliken Mills Park, Rouge Valley Trail, and the Varley Art Gallery of Markham, featuring a new artist commission, hands-on workshops, and a culminating public gathering.
Our Park is conceived by the City of Markham Public Art Program. The 2023 edition was co-produced with the York Region Arts Council in the form a community art project grant—the first of its kind in the York Region—and the 2025 edition is co-produced with the Varley Art Gallery of Markham through its Community Artist in Residence program.
Our Park 2025: Program & Key Dates
The Underground Sun: A Living Installation by Xiaojing Yan
Currently on view at Milliken Mills Park. Ongoing.
From Forest to Sky: Ink-Making Workshop with Jason Logan
August 23, 10 AM–3 PM at Rouge Valley Trail & Varley Art Gallery of Markham
Limited availability. Registration required.
Paper and Wind: Kite-Making Workshop with Annyen Lam
August 24, 10 AM–3 PM at Varley Art Gallery of Markham
Limited availability. Registration required.
Pictures of the Sky: A Kite-Flying Gathering
September 21, 3–6 PM at Milliken Mills Park (Reservoir Field)
Open to all. No registration required.
Scroll down to read program details and artist bios.
Detail of mycelial growth. Photo by Xiaojing Yan.
The Underground Sun
A Living Installation by Xiaojing Yan
Currently on view at Milliken Mills Park
Woven into the landscape of Milliken Mills Park, The Underground Sun is a 2,500-square-foot living installation that takes its form from the branching patterns of mycelium. Composed of plants native to Ontario and designed in dialogue with the park’s existing mowing patterns, the piece functions as both a restorative ecology and a symbolic infrastructure.
Artist Xiaojing Yan worked with public art consultant Catherine Dean and local native plant nursery Ecoman to select perennials that bloom in staggered waves across the seasons. From goldenrod and cup plant to coreopsis, all the flowers share a yellow palette—radiating different shades of warmth and brightness to attract pollinators throughout spring, summer, and fall.
Rather than excavating or laying new ground, the planting process carefully disturbed only small pockets of soil, placing each plant within unmown areas defined by existing turf. The result is a subtle, evolving pattern that shifts with weather and growth, held in balance between human care and natural process. As a whole, the work invites viewers to reflect on how slow transformation, unseen connection, and patient care shape both ecological and civic life.
Site plan for The Underground Sun (2025)About the Artist
Xiaojing Yan is a China-born, Markham-based artist known for her labor-intensive works that bridge cultural and ancestral values. With a distinctive perspective, she intertwines Chinese customs and symbolic materials to forge contemporary connections between art, nature, and science.
Her work has been exhibited at the Royal Ontario Museum, Chinese American Arts Council in New York, Suzhou Museum in China, Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, Hermès Maison Shanghai, Sharjah Art Museum, Varley Art Gallery, and many more. Yan has received numerous awards and grants, including the InStyle Women InCreation Prize, the Chalmers Arts Fellowship from the Ontario Arts Council, and multiple project grants from both the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
Her sculpture Lingzhi Girl was featured on the cover of Art in America (March 2022), and her writing appeared in Leonardo (MIT Press, November 2024). She holds an MFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a BFA from Nanjing University of the Arts.
From Forest to Sky
Ink-Making Workshop with Jason Logan
August 23, 10 AM–3 PM at Rouge Valley Trail & Varley Art Gallery of Markham
Led by artist and Toronto Ink Company founder Jason Logan, this two-part workshop blends art and science to explore how place-based inks can be made from the land itself. Participants will learn to safely and ethically gather pigment-rich materials from the Rouge Valley Trail—such as black walnut, wild grape, and goldenrod—then transform them into vibrant inks using simple, household methods.
These experimental, handmade inks will later become airborne as part of the kite-making workshop.
Open to all ages; children under 6 must be accompanied by an adult.
Limited availability. Registration required.
To sign up, please email: publicart@markham.ca
Paper and Wind
Kite-Making Workshop with Annyen Lam
August 24, 10 AM–3 PM at Varley Art Gallery of Markham
Artist Annyen Lam leads this hands-on workshop in traditional and experimental kite-making. Participants will construct bamboo-and-washi kites using Japanese paper and environmentally conscious materials, then personalize them with pigment and pattern.
Across many cultures, the kite is a lightweight tool of aspiration and memory, shaped by both design and natural forces. This session furthers the program’s exploration of material culture, tying together handmade ink, airborne structures, and the diverse cultural heritages that shape Markham’s landscape.
Suitable for ages 13+ (younger participants welcome with adult supervision).
Limited availability. Registration required.
To sign up, please email: publicart@markham.ca
Photo by Chloë EllingsonAbout the Artist
Jason Logan is an internationally recognized designer, creative director, author and artist. His illustrations have appeared in the New York Times, and his fine art has been exhibited in New York City, Los Angeles, Toronto and the Yukon. His work has been recognized by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, The Society of Publication Designers, the Centre for Social Innovation and the Canada Council for the Arts. His most recent book, How to Be a Color Wizard was published last year with MIT Kids. He is also the author of Make Ink: A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking, included in The Guardian’s list of best books of 2018. Logan's work and colour network is featured in The Colour of Ink, a documentary which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival is now available on Amazon Prime. You can follow his ink explorations on his instagram and weekly newsletter.The Toronto Ink Company
Founded in 2014, The Toronto Ink Company is a collaborative, citizen-science experiment in harvesting colour from the built, wild and hybrid landscapes. The Toronto Ink Company works on all scales, from bottled pigments and ink tests to collaborative projects and workshops with scientists, Indigenous communities, poets, artists, designers, filmmakers, architects, and city builders. The inks have been tested by artists, illustrators and experimenters around the world, from Berlin, New York, Paris, Los Angeles and Japan to a National Geographic icebreaker in the Arctic. Custom inks have been commissioned by Harley Davidson, Row 7 Seeds, the University of Michigan Press, WeTransfer and DC Comics, among others.
About the Artist
Annyen Lam (林安姸) is a multidisciplinary Tkaronto/Toronto-based artist whose practice centers on paper as a medium. Exploring its sculptural possibilities, Annyen uses paper’s materiality to deconstruct how we perceive and make sense of our everyday environment. Annyen is the creator of Tiny Blades Project, a years-long series of small paper-cutting works.
Annyen has facilitation experience at OCAD University, Open Studio, Paperhouse Studio, the TDSB, and in Iqaluit, NU, and has exhibited throughout Canada and the US, notably at the AGO, Museum London, Agnes Jamieson Gallery, Art Toronto, Papier Montreal, and Art on Paper (New York City and Miami). Annyen has also worked as an artist-in-residence at Open Studio in Toronto, The Hermitage Museum in Russia, and Amsterdam Grafisch Atelier in The Netherlands.
Pictures of the Sky
A Kite-Flying Gathering
September 21, 3–6 PM at Milliken Mills Park (Reservoir Field)
The project culminates in Pictures of the Sky, a community kite-flying event that brings together participants, artists, and neighbours to celebrate shared creation. Held atop the open field of a major water reservoir—part of the vast infrastructure connecting Markham and Toronto—this joyful gathering invites everyone to fly the kites made in the workshops, or to bring their own.
Join us with your own kite for an afternoon of wind, colour, and connection.
Artists Annyen Lam and Jason Logan will be on site offering condensed versions of their earlier workshops. A food truck will also be on site during the event.
Open to all. No registration required.
Behind the Scenes of Park Design in Markham
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To understand the process of park making, Markham Public Art invited three city builders to share their insights. In this video, we have combined their knowledge, experience, and inspiration, to develop a lexicon of key terms to consider when creating a park.