Mount Pleasant Group and Space for Grief Turn Cemeteries Into a Museum
Ten cemeteries across the Greater Toronto Area are taking on a new role as an outdoor museum, where visitors can explore public art, nature, and 200 years of Toronto history.
Mount Pleasant Group and Space for Grief™ have launched Yesterday. Today. Forever., a free art and history project created to mark Mount Pleasant Group’s bicentennial.
The installations are open to the public through 2027, giving people a chance to walk through sculptures, hear original soundscapes, explore archival stories, and leave personal memories behind.
A Museum Without Walls
The project uses each cemetery’s existing landscape, architecture, archives, and community stories as part of the experience.
Visitors can cross through reclaimed doors, watch projected images move across sculptural forms, add messages to Memory Gardens, or follow outdoor displays that trace the region’s changing communities.
“Yesterday. Today. Forever. is not art simply placed in a cemetery; it grows from the histories, landscapes and memories already held there,” said Ziyan Hossain, co-founder and creative director of Method Collective and Space for Grief.
Hossain said the sites reflect two centuries of Toronto, including its people, migrations, architecture, ecology, and generations of care. The project asks visitors to consider what should be carried forward while experiencing history through movement, sound, reflection, and participation.
5 Ways to Experience the Project
Across the 10 locations, the installations offer different ways to connect with memory and place:
- Walk through Toronto’s past
At Mount Pleasant and Prospect cemeteries, reclaimed doors from buildings across the GTA stand without walls.
Visitors can pass through them while reflecting on change, memory and the places people leave behind. - Enter a memory in motion
At Toronto Necropolis, We Remembered the Monoliths uses stacked white forms as a screen for moving forests, oceans and cityscapes.
The work includes an original soundscape led by Hossain, footage by BBC Planet Earth II contributor Justin Blake, and music involving guitarist Plini, engineer and producer Henry Reinach, and writer and activist Sandy Hudson. - Leave a remembrance
York, Meadowvale, and Thornton cemeteries feature Memory Gardens inside greenery-covered gazebos.
Visitors can write to someone or something they have lost, with messages displayed on translucent bird-shaped cards in multiple voices and languages. - See art change with the light
Murmuration at Pine Hills Cemetery uses translucent birds that appear to shift colour as daylight changes and people move around them.
The piece reflects the many communities connected through Mount Pleasant Group. - Follow 200 years of history
All 10 sites feature museum-style outdoor signage with timelines, archival photographs, and reflective prompts.
The displays explore individual lives alongside migration, architecture, public health, ecology, and Toronto’s ongoing growth.
Plan Your Visit
The project spans cemeteries in Toronto, North York, Scarborough, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Brampton, Pickering, and Oshawa. Flagship installations are located at Mount Pleasant Cemetery and Toronto Necropolis.
The works remain in place throughout 2026, with selected components continuing into 2027. Here is the essential information visitors should know:
- August 18 to October 31: 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM
- November 1 to March 31: 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM
- Admission: Free
- Locations: 10 Mount Pleasant Group cemeteries across the GTA
Installation details, maps and visitor information are available at mpg200.ca/installations.
Which installation would you want to explore first? Share your pick with us in the comments.
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