Legends became reality at RiverBrink Art Museum this past weekend, as its riverside grounds were filled with myth-inspired art installations for its third-annual art installation festival, as its director worked to convince Niagara visitors it’s not just the region’s past that should inspire intrigue, but what it can offer up in the present.
Debra Antoncic, the museum’s director and curator, said the biggest obstacle to the On the Brink Installation Art Festival has never been the art itself.
“It’s always a challenge to build an audience. People think of Niagara, they think of the historical sites and everything, and we just wanted to push ahead with more of a focus on installation,” she said.
The free festival ran Sept.5 and 6 at the museum’s property on 116 Queenston St. in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Four artists from the Niagara region built temporary works on the property to fit this year’s theme of myth.
Kathy Thomas from Queenston planted two wings, each two and a half metres tall, on the grass to represent the Greek goddess of victory Nike landing to crown a victor.
Thomas built the wings from styrofoam and finished them to look like the rough Queenston limestone in Brock’s Monument, the memorial on Queenston Heights that carries four carved Nike figures at its top.
Installation art is built for a specific place and a short time, and Antoncic said that is what suits RiverBrink’s location above the Niagara River.
“We’re very much an interior space. We’ve got the conventional museum space,” she said. “So really to take advantage of the site, we wanted something like this.”
The museum recently rebuilt its side garden with new stairs and a patio.
The other three pieces drew on the Celtic selkie, a fairy circle and an invented “myth of the feathered dam,” in which Kim Collins cast five geese made from reclaimed fabric as inspectors of the Great Lakes.
Antoncic said the museum picked myth because the Greek stories keep resurfacing in contemporary culture and the theme let artists work from different traditions.
Thomas took part in the first festival in 2024, when the theme was land. Joanne Ring, who built this year’s fairy circle, returned from the 2025 festival on monuments. The artists walked the grounds with visitors on Saturday afternoon to talk about their work.
The one part of the weekend that fell short was a family workshop where children could build mythical creatures from found materials.
“That hasn’t worked so well. I think Labour Day weekend is a tough weekend for families. But the other adults have been enjoying this,” Antoncic said.
The Town of NOTL paid for the workshop through its community grants program, and NOTL Tourism sponsored the festival.
