{"id":26165,"date":"2020-03-12T19:37:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T23:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26165"},"modified":"2020-03-19T19:31:48","modified_gmt":"2020-03-19T23:31:48","slug":"documenting-aurora-showcases-towns-recently-lost-landscapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/documenting-aurora-showcases-towns-recently-lost-landscapes\/","title":{"rendered":"Documenting Aurora showcases Town\u2019s recently lost landscapes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019re a recent arrival to Aurora, the time when St.\nJohn\u2019s Sideroad was little more than a country road seems like a world away \u2013\nbut things move quickly over the course of a decade or so and, in that time,\nAnna Lozyk Romeo has been there, camera at the ready. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora photographer, and creative force behind the\npopular Living in Aurora blog, has trained her lens on Aurora\u2019s changing\nlandscape for more than 10 years, chronicling what once was and what now is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her work comes into focus this month at the Aurora Public\nLibrary with the launch of the new photography exhibition \u201cDocumenting Aurora\u201d\nat the Colleen Abbott Gallery. Documenting Aurora launches March 16, running\nthrough April 27, and showcases the many changes Aurora has experienced between\n2011 and 2019, with a specific focus on demolished and restored buildings and\nthe development of local farmland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe moved to Aurora in 1997 and for ten years we were\njust workaholics,\u201d says Anna of the lifestyle she and husband Dominic enjoyed\nprior to the arrival of their son Matthew. \u201cFor us, Aurora was a bedroom\ncommunity. For ten years, we didn\u2019t really see what was happening. After ten\nyears, we decided to have Matthew and I decided to have a change of career.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An engineer by training and practice, she decided to\nbalance her new role as mom while embracing her creativity behind the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A resident of the St. John\u2019s and Bayview Avenue\ncommunity, the rapidly developing area provided plenty of artistic \u2013 and\nsometimes alarming \u2013 inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe saw changes \u2013 old buildings coming down, new land\nbeing developed, and it was very progressive,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These changes sparked an interest in history and the\ncivic affairs of this Town and she became increasingly interested in following\nplanning applications to get her and her camera ahead of the wrecking ball. As\nshe delved deeper into Aurora\u2019s history, she noticed that what was considered\npart of Aurora\u2019s history began to drop off after the 1950s, and she made a\nconcerted effort to help fill in the gaps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first big project she devoted much of her time to was\nthe saga surrounding the historic Petch House, moved from what is now the Smart\nCentres development near Highway 404 to a lot near Leslie and Wellington, where\nit was left to decay for years before being restored and rebuilt behind the\nAurora Seniors\u2019 Centre just over six years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of buildings became abandoned [as lands began\nbeing redeveloped] and my photography went from events and walking our streets\nand trails to actually going to demolition sites,\u201d she says. \u201cI followed Petch\nHouse for three years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her work on Petch House opened doors, and she spent days\ndocumenting just about every corner of the former Wells Street Public School\nbefore it was transformed into lofts, the reconstruction of a historic\nfarmhouse that once stood at the northeast corner of Bayview and St. John\u2019s\nSideroad, and, perhaps most meaningful to her, the demolition of the Lundy farm\nnear Leslie and St. John\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of these projects are equally important, but the one\nI like the most is Joe Lundy,\u201d says Ms. Lozyk Romeo of her time watching the\ndemolition alongside the former property who grew up in the house and his\nfamily. \u201cIt was literally the end. You\u2019re watching the end of those farmlands\nwhile Joe was laughing and telling stories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In curating a selection of the buildings, landscapes and\nstreetscapes she has captured over the last ten years, Ms. Lozyk Romeo says it\nis all about capturing change as it happens before this change is forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re such a busy and fast society,\u201d she says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t\nthinking about it when I started taking the photos, but now when I look that\nthem, I see that sometimes we don\u2019t actually see what is going on. Change is\ngood, but it needs to be responsible. I want to bring awareness to what is\ngoing on around you. History is important, continuity is important. I want to\nmake people aware of what is going on because we\u2019re literally losing ground to\nconcrete.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she began what ultimately became a photography\nproject, she had myriad historic buildings to capture, all in varying states of\npreservation and decay. As time has marched on, so too have these sources of\ninspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow I don\u2019t really have anything to work with,\u201d she says with a chuckle. \u201cAurora has gone through a social and cultural change. We\u2019re trying to be a more diverse community and now I think [my photography] is going to be more about culture \u2013 people versus land transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a recent arrival to Aurora, the time when St. John\u2019s Sideroad was little more than a country road seems like a world away \u2013 but things move quickly over the course of a decade or so and, in that time, Anna Lozyk Romeo has been there, camera at the ready. The Aurora photographer, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/2020-03-12-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6O1","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 01:23:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}