Toronto sculptor hopes first Black historical monument in city collection inspires 'community allyship'

A Toronto visual storyteller wants his sculpture, the first of its kind in the city, to spur community allyship to generate further change.

Forged in bronze at Joshua Glover Park in Etobicoke is a monument of the park’s namesake -- Joshua Glover.

Glover’s life and history helped propel the movement to end slavery forward, and tells the story of Torontonians coming together to celebrate his legacy.

Glover escaped the United States and came to Canada through the Underground Railroad in 1854.

“I really wanted to focus on how he went through different transitions, and how those transitions didn’t stop defining who he wanted to be,” Quentin VerCetty, the sculptor who designed and created the statue, told CTV News Toronto Tuesday.

VerCetty, 31, grew up in Rexdale and was first introduced to Glover’s inspiring life by his mother as a boy.

“I was so fascinated this Black man lived in my neighbourhood and essentially helped to unite a community,” VerCetty explained.

Through a competitive process, VerCetty’s sculpture was selected to represent Joshua Glover and the completed work was unveiled in July of 2021.

“The flower in his hat is all about him recognizing that he was more than his condition. More than his circumstances. The flower represents the blooming of his mind, representing his imagination. Change cannot happen if you cannot imagine something different.”

Glover settled in what is now Etobicoke, married, and worked at Montgomery Inn for 30 years, which is now a museum.

The sculpture sits down the road a few kilometres away.

“He became a giant in the community. He became someone that people fell in love with, someone people respect,” Michael Thompson, Toronto’s Deputy Mayor, said.

The city said the sculpture is the first permanent monument dedicated to a Black historical figure in its public art and monuments collection, which has 200 pieces.

“The story hasn’t been told. And the reason the story hasn’t been told is that we haven’t been part of that process. We are now part of that process,” Thompson said.

“We now have the first, which is Joshua Glover, but I dare say that there is going to be many more. It’s a matter of time. A matter of recognition, a matter of understanding the contributions that Blacks have made in this city.”

The piece took VerCetty two months to make using 3D technology and digital sculpting, before adding details like wrinkles and scars.

With no existing photographs of Glover, VerCetty said he relied on written references and composite drawings to put the finished product together.

The sculpture itself was conceived through a lens of Afrofuturism, which Vercetty looks at as a way to learn about the past to inform the present and future to heal.

Part of the reason the sculpture has a cyborg arm.

“It’s a metaphor for the enslavement that Joshua Glover was subscribed to for a majority of his life and then how he reclaimed his humanity,” VerCetty said.

From the sculpture and Glover’s story, VerCetty said he wants people to take away ‘community allyship’.

“There’s so many people who helped him to get to where he was. It’s not like he got himself free on his own. It’s through the community of Wisconsin, the community of the abolitionists of Toronto, the Montgomery family.”

VerCetty said this is a special moment in history where people are trying to improve society -- and to get to that place people need to work together.