Space for Grief returns to Evergreen Brick Works for its third year, transforming the Young
Centre into an immersive journey through memory, emotion, and connection. This internationally-recognized public art installation invites visitors of all ages to explore how grief can shape our lives, our relationships, our policies, built environment, and our shared future.
As part of the installation, visitors can also explore the Museum of Grief, which shares the historical and contemporary impacts of grief, and the Bird Garden, a reflective environment where stories and memories are shared and honoured.
Through storytelling, sensory design, and shared reflection, the experience blends science, culture, and lived experience into spaces for learning, contemplation, and participation. This year’s edition expands with special programming including cross-sector conversations, film screenings, live soundscapes, and more.
The installation runs November 1–11, 2025, and is free and open to the public. The space is designed to be welcoming and accessible, offering a place to pause, connect, and reflect together as a community.
Grounded Strands: Join Maria, from Philotimo Life, to learn about the ways beads have played a role in many cultures for meditation. Visitors will explore their emotions, their connection to grief and the way it plays a role in their lives. Guests will have the opportunity to craft their own meditation beads (prayer beads, worry beads, etc.), to reflect their own personal style, emotions and approach to processing your personal experiences. At the end of the workshop, you will get to take home a personalized keepsake.
Grief Memory Mosaic: You’re invited to share your experience with grief with others at the Good Mourning Festival. In this activation, you will be presented thoughtful questions that are designed to be introspective and encourage conversations. You will be provided with stickers and notepads to answer questions presented to you on a bristol board. As the festival progresses, the boards will transform into vibrant canvases filled with the answers and collective wisdom, stories and feelings of those in attendance. Our goal through this activation is to help encourage meaningful conversations and create connection with other attendees.
Archive of Forgetting: What we remember about ourselves, our experiences, and the people around us defines who we are. But what happens when memory fades—because of time, aging, or illness? Not just the day-to-day details fade, but the experiences and understanding that fundamentally shape us.
This installation creates space to preserve what might be lost and acknowledge what slips away. Visitors are invited to share what they hope to always remember—whether it’s a specific moment, a feeling, a person, or something deeper about themselves or their world. Through sharing our memories, we create a communal space to consider what we carry with us and what one day might be lost, building an archive of all the ways we hold onto who we are.
Bereaved Families of Ontario: Bereaved Families of Ontario – Toronto is a local charitable organization who supports individuals, families and groups experiencing grief from the death of a loved one. Since 1978, we have supported thousands of people through our peer support model by offering one-to-one sessions and peer support groups.
Solace Cafe: The Solace Cafe is a pop-up space where you’re invited to pause, pour a cup of tea, and share what’s on your heart—with someone who’s there simply to listen.
Inspired by the “15 minutes of connection” concept, this experience offers peer-to-peer conversations rooted in presence, empathy, and non-judgment. It’s not about fixing or giving advice—it’s about holding space, being seen, and reminding each other that we’re not alone. Tea is our bridge and here, it becomes a quiet offering of support and togetherness.
The Solace Café is curated by KohcoBein, a creative wellness collective founded by Fiona Ellis. Rooted in care, creativity, and community, the collective is dedicated to reimagining how we hold space for grief, healing, and human connection.
DIY Everlasting Bouquets: Come explore the beauty of dried flowers! Work with locally grown blooms & take home a bouquet!
Dried flowers represent the beauty that remains long after the life cycle of the plant ends – serving as symbols that prompt reflection on cherished memories and the lasting impact of those who have departed from our lives.
A lot of the fresh cut flowers maintain their beauty long after their life cycle ends. Flower varieties including Statice, Strawflower, and Celosia, to name a few, keep their vibrant colour once dried and are excellent for dried flower bouquets. Come join us in Koerner Gardens (see map) to make your own Everlasting Bouquet! All flowers provided are grown by local flower farmers. Drop in between 1pm and 3pm!
Memorial Garden: As part of the Good Mourning Festival, we invite you to participate in a touching community event where you can plant tulip bulbs in our Memorial Garden. This special garden serves as a place of reflection and beauty, where each tulip symbolizes a cherished memory, a loved one, or a personal milestone.
How It Works:
Purchase a Bulb: Guests are encouraged to purchase tulip bulbs at a “pay what you can” cost, with a recommended donation of $5 per bulb. Your contribution helps maintain the garden and supports the Good Mourning Festival continue to be free.
Plant Your Tulip: After purchasing your bulb, you will have the opportunity to plant it in our Memorial Garden. Whether in honor of someone special or to commemorate a personal occasion, your tulip will grow as a living symbol of life, love, and remembrance.
Return in Spring: When the tulips bloom in the spring, you’re welcome to return to the garden and take a tulip with you as a keepsake. Each flower will serve as a beautiful reminder of the connection you’ve made with the garden and the memories it holds.
This activity is a heartfelt part of the Good Mourning Festival, providing a meaningful way to engage with nature, support the community, and create something beautiful that will continue to bloom year after year. Join us as we plant the seeds of memory and watch them grow into a stunning display of color and life.
Soulful Recipes: Food serves as a tangible and sensory link to our cultural and familial heritage. It can bring us closer to our deceased relatives by preserving their traditions, memories and the emotional connections we had with them. Sharing food can be a meaningful way to honour and remember those who have passed away while also reinforcing the sense of continuity within a family or community.
Food has the power to evoke strong emotions and memories. Cooking or eating a dish that a deceased relative loved can be a way to feel close to them, almost as if they are present in spirit. The taste and smell of familiar foods can trigger a sense of comfort and nostalgia, bringing back fond memories of times spent with loved ones.
Visit our Saturday Farmers Market to find recipes shared by our vendors, staff and volunteers honouring loved ones passed
Spirit Wind Drummers: Spirit Wind Hand Drum Collective sing traditional and social hand-drum songs. Our group is made up of Indigenous and non-Indigenous members. The drum has brought us together, and the songs offer us an opportunity to re-balance and re-connect while we honour ourselves and each other. The drumbeat reminds us of our relationship, connection and responsibilities to all of Creation.
Womxn’s hand drum social singing is a relatively new tradition in this part. We have learned most of our songs in-community, and some of the songs are our own. We share what we have learned with everyone that chooses to stand with us
Pet Memorial: In this activation, the community is invited to acknowledge pet loss and grief as a collective. You will have the option to light a candle in your companions honour and write their name on a rock as a symbol of the weight that grief holds within you. You are also welcome to bring your pet’s collars and harnesses and attach them to the “rainbow bridge” on site. All items left will be donated to the Toronto Humane Society. Our goal is to bring awareness to and normalize pet loss grief as it is often unacknowledged, minimized and unvalidated by social norms. Amy Pemas is the owner of In Good Hands Pet Loss, a Holistic Pet Funeral Home located in East York. She is a certified end of life doula, certified end of life animal care provider, trained hospice and bereavement volunteer, CNP, reiki master, and iridologist. Amy received training as an assistant pet funeral director from Helen Hobbs at Pets At Peace. Her background and experience brings a unique holistic approach to pet after-life care and bereavement support.
Life Cycles: Join us in the Children’s Garden for a weekend filled with exploration, curiosity, and meaningful lessons about the circle of life in the natural world. Come learn about decomposers and life cycles of different plants and animals – you’ll see how everything is interconnected!
Staged Reading: Join Litmus Theatre for a 1-hour reading of their newest piece, Balikbayan. This play (currently in development) follows a son’s bizarre journey to uncover a dark family mystery across time and cultures. The word Balikbayan describes someone returning to the Philippines after living abroad. This Balikbayan is a theatre-play shout-out to 80’s sci-fi film Back to the Future. It’s about grief, modern masculinity, the complexities of leaving home, and the difference between getting old and growing up
A Living Map: A Living Map of Grief and Belonging is a participatory installation that explores how grief travels with us—through migration, displacement, and everyday departures—and how, we are tethered by this shared human experience.
This evolving artwork invites visitors to reflect on personal and collective loss, memory, and the emotional landscapes we inhabit. As people contribute their stories, memories, or moments of grief, the map grows—revealing a network of connection, resilience, and belonging.
Whether you’re mourning a person, a place, a language, or a version of yourself left behind, this space welcomes your presence.
Closing Ceremony: Join artist Emily Pleasance and friends for a collective closing to the Good Mourning Festival. Through music, storytelling, and shared reflection, we will create a grief ritual to honour what has been felt and witnessed together. This gathering offers an intentional and heartfelt ending to the festival, inviting all of us to come together, connect, and carry forward what matters most
Sanctuary (with Forest Bathing Club): A gentle arts-based space to pause, reflect, and create. Join in sound-making, storytelling, and art activities, including offerings for children, such as meeting The Lorax and creating mustaches. Share your words on grief to be woven into the festival’s closing ceremony.
Face Painting: Happy Faces86 is very happy to celebrate The Day of the Dead with you. Come and get your Face painted as a calaverita, catrina or skull. We will have different designs for those who like butterflies, rainbows, spiderman etc. Prices start from $5 and up. We accept Debit and Credit cards. We can’t wait to see you!
Mercado: Step into a vibrant celebration of culture and creativity at our Artisan Market, dedicated to highlighting the incredible talents of Mexican and Latinx creators. This lively marketplace is a feast for the senses, featuring a diverse array of handcrafted goods that showcase the rich traditions, modern innovations, and artistic excellence of the Mexican and LatinX Community
Short Film (Vela): Vela (2023) is a short fiction film on Dia de Los Muertos through a child’s perspective. It is a touching and grounded family drama that incorporates Magical Realism and Mexican folklore. It focuses on the theme of grief and its role in restoring our familial ties ~ here and departed.
Sugar Skulls: Sugar skulls are a Mexican tradition for Day of the Dead, they are small skulls made with just sugar and water, decorated with colourful frosting, sequins, ans sometimes coloured aluminum foil.
In this workshop you can decorate your own sugar skull, we will provided all the materials, just bring your creativity! Maxei is a multidisciplinary arts collective that started in 2020, with passion and experience in performing and visual arts, and workshop facilitation. Maxei’s mission is to bring art wherever possible, and to open spaces and opportunities for newcomer artists.
Paper Masks: Catrinas are one of the most recognizable symbols of the Day of the Dead. She represents the idea that, no matter how rich or powerful someone is, at the end we are all equal.
This free workshop is for you to create your own “Catrina” paper mask.
You can get as creative as you want, when finished, you can wear your creation and take it home!
