This Place Remembers 2025 – 2026
This Place Remembers involved the planting of thousands of crocuses throughout the city of Saskatoon in the fall of 2025. Each crocus was planted on a site of pain or trauma.
After dormancy they will emerge in the spring to blanket the city with brief glimpses of hope and renewal.
On April 18th, 2026, when the crocuses bloom, Remai Modern and STR8UP will host a walking tour of nearby sites.
The idea of planting crocuses comes from a dark place – a place of painful memories. When I move around the city of Saskatoon, I am enveloped by these memories oozing from various sites. Some are connected to difficult public events that happened there – like the freezing death of Neil Stonechild. Others are more private, like the place that my son and I walked together before his drug-related death, the corner where I personally witnessed a vicious act.
I invited people to share similar sites with me – locations full of raw and hurtful memories – sites that need healing and new hope. This project is based on the premise that these sites hold tight to their memories and histories, acting as mini-memorials throughout the city.
In each block designated, I with members of Str8Up planted white crocuses. Crocuses were buried in dark earth in the fall, and remain there all winter, hidden from view but not forgotten. Rather they are dormant, percolating, waiting for a new start when warmer weather arrives. The crocuses emerge the first thing in the spring, poking through the surface of the earth just as the snow melts. These crocuses still mark the site of hurt and aching, but in their arrival out of the darkness offer a possible new optimism.
I envision our city to be carpeted with thousands of crocuses in early spring – signs of hope, renewal, and rebirth. But they are barely seen when they melt back into the earth, like a brief glimpse of possibility. This is a very public but almost invisible project, emerging only from questions about flowers that appear where they have never existed before.
Why hire Str8Up? Str8Up is an organization based in Saskatoon that assists men and women to leave gang life. I valued the assistance of men and women to plant these crocuses at the right time, before freeze up, but not too early. I have worked extensively with members of Str8Up in the past, including the projects Where were their Mothers? and Acknowledging the Unacknowledged. Their involvement in each of these earlier projects was crucial for the success of these works, both through their sharing of their lived experiences and for their general enthusiasm.
Gangs are blamed for much of the crime that happens here. This project directly engages with these very groups, offering them financial support and a way to participate in a different story of the city.
On April 18th, 2026, when the crocuses bloom, Remai Modern and STR8UP will host a walking tour of nearby sites.
STR8 UP
STR8 UP offers outreach services, programming, and support to those who have lived or are living criminal street lifestyles and who want to make positive changes in their lives. STR8 UP provides educational supports, workforce development, mental health and substance management support, as well as case management and cultural programming. Linda Duvall has worked with STR8 UP in several past projects.