The Leslie Street Spit is an otherworldly place of contradictions. Feral yet tended, landscape and waterscape, it is a renowned conservation area built on demolition waste located at the foot of Leslie Street in Toronto. The Spit generates a lot of art-making, in evidence on its rubble beaches and in the myriad responses one finds in galleries and books.

The selected photographs in this series come from my own Leslie Spit Project. They were shot from dusk on, well into the night under the full moon. The resulting images are evocative, strange, almost romantic. The long exposures capture things we don’t see when we’re there: colour at night, stark reaching shadows, smeared trails of branches and flowers as they whip back and forth in the wind. You can almost hear the coyotes howl and the insects buzz all around you.

Lisa Binnie is a multidisciplinary artist and arts educator teaching at Haliburton School of Art + Design, Fleming College and at Centennial College. She investigates her immediate landscape in longterm immersive and experiential projects that involve close observation, research, networking and community involvement. The resulting projects can be image-based, sculptural, installation or public walking events. The Leslie Spit Project is one of three veins of investigation Lisa has undertaken as she focus on the development of Toronto’s urban waterfront.