Repair as a Practice: Investing in Continuity

I recently spent five days in Bleecker Park with Tristan R. Whiston and Katie Yealland, restoring ReDefine Arts’ Milestone Pebble Mosaic. It was physically uncomfortable, exacting work, requiring patience, concentration and care.

Restoration is complex. Damaged stones and supporting materials must be carefully removed down to the paver base, while structurally sound stones are protected. New materials must bond successfully with those installed nine years ago. And because this is public art in Toronto, the work must withstand repeated freeze-thaw cycles each winter, from November through April.

Restoration is not simply putting something back the way it was. It requires assessing what can be retained, what must be removed and how old and new materials can work together. Building something new is generally less labour-intensive than repairing something old. Repair asks us to slow down, understand what is already there and work carefully to make the restoration last.

During those five days, I found myself thinking about repair as a practice and a kind of relational wayfinder.

ReDefine Arts has installed more than 30 public artworks. Working in the public realm can be as challenging as it is rewarding. I have many stressful installation memories, including the time a passerby rattled the 30 foot scaffolding I was working on. Public spaces are shared spaces, and artists must navigate the unpredictability of everyday life.

This restoration had one primary stressor: time. We needed to complete the work within a limited window, allowing for the necessary drying periods and material requirements.

Otherwise, conditions were remarkably good. Daytime temperatures stayed between 16 and 20 degrees Celsius, the sun was mostly shining, and one brief spell of drizzle passed within five minutes. We could hardly have asked for better October weather.

Perhaps most meaningful were the neighbourhood residents who stopped to speak with us. Many thanked us for restoring the mosaic, and several told us it had been plowed last winter.

Our mosaics are designed to withstand significant weight loads, but not the scraping action of a snowplow. One type of stone had also begun to chip and crack before the reported plowing incident. Damage in public spaces rarely has a simple explanation; weather, materials, maintenance and human activity all contribute to a structure's condition.

What stayed with me was how many people noticed the mosaic and cared enough to ask about its restoration. An artwork’s life also extends beyond its materials. It becomes part of the landscape, people move through and recognize, and over time, part of a neighbourhood's living memory.

I have been thinking about how public art, like the natural environments we inhabit, exists within an ecosystem of relationships. In a forest, trees are connected to other plants, water, soil, fungi, animals and countless other living things. Each element is part of a larger whole, shaped by its relationships with everything around it.

Public art also exists within a web of relationships. Its materials and physical structure matter, but so do the people who create it, the places that hold it, the communities that encounter it and the memories that accumulate around it. An artwork does not exist in isolation; it becomes part of the life of a place.

The Milestone Pebble Mosaic was created in 2017 through a collaborative process with community members from Winchester Park and St. James Town. The project invited people to explore what it means to live in Canada, on Turtle Island, as Indigenous people, settlers or newcomers. Conversations about relationships to land and home, Indigenous sovereignty, and the ongoing legacy of colonialism informed a collaborative design that became a 12-foot-diameter pebble mosaic in Bleecker Park.

You can read more about the original project on the Milestone webpage.

The mosaic carries the intentions and questions that shaped its creation. Its significance is connected to the people who contributed to it, those who have encountered it over the years, and those who continue to live in the neighbourhood.

Restoration, then, is not simply a matter of preserving an object. It is a way of caring for something that has become part of a larger social and cultural landscape. The challenge is to understand what needs attention while recognizing the relationships that give the work its meaning.

Repair is often framed as a cost incurred when something breaks or wears out. Restoration requires time, skilled labour, materials and planning, and sometimes it is more complicated or expensive than replacement.

But I think of repair as an investment in continuity.

Restoring an artwork means investing in its future while acknowledging its past. Materials change, damage happens, and public art requires ongoing attention. Rather than treating deterioration as a reason to discard something, we ask what it would take to care for it.

This does not mean everything must be preserved indefinitely. Some things cannot be repaired safely or meaningfully. But the choice between repair and replacement deserves consideration beyond immediate cost or convenience.

What is lost when something familiar disappears? What knowledge, relationships or memories are connected to it? What might be gained by investing in its continued life?

These questions extend beyond public art to the ways we care for shared spaces, community resources, relationships and the environments we inhabit. Repair can be a practical response to damage, harm or wear and tear, but it can also express that something matters enough to sustain.

Throughout the restoration, I kept returning to the relationship between old and new materials. The new must bond with the existing structure; neither can do the work alone. The repair depends on connecting what has endured with what is being introduced.

This feels relevant to the relationships that make public art possible. A community artwork is not finished at installation. Its life continues through encounters, maintenance, changing circumstances and the care of people who may never have been involved in its creation.

Repair offers a way forward without pretending nothing has changed. It acknowledges damage without allowing damage to become the whole story. It preserves what remains valuable while making room for continued life.

The residents who stopped to thank us reminded me that this work does not happen in isolation. Their responses made visible the connection between a piece of public art and the community that lives alongside it.

After five physically demanding days, I left Bleecker Parkette thinking less about restoration as a return to an earlier state and more about restoration as an act of care in the present.

Repair is not the easiest path. It asks for time, skill, patience and a willingness to work with complexity. But it offers something replacement cannot provide: a way to carry the past forward while making space for the future.

Sometimes, the most meaningful next step is to look carefully at what is already here, recognize what is worth protecting, and do the work of helping it endure.