Let’s Heal the Divide
Toni Latour, Canada
Description
UPDATE: In April 2025, this artwork found a new home on the western facade of the building located at 290 West 3rd Avenue in Vancouver
Title: Let’s Heal the Divide
Artist: Toni Latour (b. 1975, Canada)
Medium: Single white neon tube
Dimensions (H x W x D): 76 x 914 x 3 cm (30 x 360 x 1.2 inches)
Weight: 35 kg (77 lbs)
Location: 290 West 3rd Avenue (and Alberta Street) in Vancouver
Let’s Heal the Divide was originally installed on the façade of Vancouver Community College from 2015-17. It marked the physical and perceptual divisions between the Downtown Eastside, one of the most impoverished postal codes in Canada, and one of the wealthiest commercial and financial districts that borders it.
From December 2020 to July 2024, the artwork was installed on the façade of the building located at 133 Keefer Street Vancouver’s Chinatown, a neighbourhood challenged by gentrification, class inversion, and the threat of cultural displacement from urban developers and city rezoning.
In April 2025, Let’s Heal the Divide found a new home on the west-facing outer wall of the building located at 290 West 3rd Avenue in Vancouver.
The artwork continues to resonate beyond its physical surroundings. Globally, we have witnessed institutional and systemic racism and violence, intense political conflict, the rise of the Black Lives Matter and Me Too Movements, the fight to end targeted transgender violence and discrimination, the continued struggle for Indigenous rights and environmental justice, and, of course, a worldwide pandemic.
At one of the most divisive times in recent history, we continue to make demands for a better world. While economies have been radically altered, and public and personal engagement restricted, we have still found ways to connect, learn, protest, preserve traditions, and build community.
Let’s Heal the Divide acts as a reminder that we all share the responsibility for inclusion, justice and collective healing.
The Vancouver Biennale acknowledges that they are on the ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), S
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What does Let’s Heal the Divide mean to you? How does it touch on your experience, and in what ways do you think we can reconnect and repair? Connect with the Vancouver Biennale on social media and share your thoughts.
Sponsors
Prior to the artwork’s first public installation, Let’s Heal the Divide received generous support from the YVR Collective Association, a group of philanthropists supporting arts initiatives in Vancouver. We are grateful for such community partnerships and continue to seek and nurture new alliances that focus on art in public spaces.
