Home galleries are hiding in plain sight across Canada

Summer barbecue vibes ... but make it art. In 2021, Toronto-based curator Erin Storus founded Garden Variety, a project that transformed her backyard into an exhibition space. Here, visitors attend Garden Variety II, a one-day event held in July of 2021. (Garden Variety) It was the summer of 2021, and Toronto was still in pandemic mode, weathering a lockdown that would become the longest of its kind. Erin Storus was living in the Annex that year, renting an apartment in a shared house on Markham Street. She was unemployed and unsure about the future, and yet, Storus felt lucky. She had something most downtown residents pined for: her own private patch of green space. "We had this big beautiful backyard that was a total mess," says Storus, and amid the weeds and ankle-high grass, she saw potential. For a single day that July, Storus transformed her urban oasis into an outdoor exhibition called Garden Variety . She had zero past experience as a curator. She didn't even know the artists ... Read full article.