This exhibition shows that basketball is more than a game — it's a cultural force

CBC

2 days ago

Sports often elicit feelings bigger than we can express with words. The love of the game can take shape in so many ways, and in the new Museum of Toronto exhibition, Home Game: Toronto Loves Basketball, the show explores how basketball is woven into the city through culture, fashion and art.
Located at the Harbourfront Centre, in its own glass-walled space outside of the main gallery, the exhibit shows how deeply ingrained basketball is to Toronto communities. From neighbourhood teams and key figures to the Raptors' 2019 championship win, Home Game establishes just how much basketball has transformed the city. The exhibit uses interview clips, memorabilia, artifacts and art to tell the story of the relationship Toronto has with the sport.
In Home Game, the art on display reflects the accessibility and diversity of the sport. Curator Perry King shares that the demand for this kind of exhibit had been growing for a while. He wanted art to be included to share the larger intention of the exhibit. "Basketball has been able to capture so many people in different ways," he says. "It's not just a sport. It's a living, breathing organism. It's something that people want to take further into their own lives."
One focal point is an installation of six photos. The 2017 series entitled Jump Ball: Toronto by Jamaican Canadian photographer O'shane Howard was shot on the public basketball courts of Toronto's St. James Town neighbourhood. It features images of young Black men of Somalian, Ghanaian, Ethiopian, Nigerian, Congolese and Senegalese descent posing with basketballs and wearing traditional cultural attire as well as Western streetwear. Howard worked with Sunday School Creative founder Josef Adamu to create the shoot.
Both men grew up playing basketball and both are passionate about storytelling, so they were natural collaborators on this project that depicts the African diaspora through the sport. "There's basketball, but [we're] also showing the cultural aspect to basketball — where these people are from. It wasn't only a basketball series, it was more of an educational piece." Howard learned about culture and clothing and why certain people wear the things they wear — and he hoped others would learn, too.
The location of the photos looked "gritty," Howard says, which lent to the esthetic he wanted for the shoot. "I really took my time in post-production to finalize what I wanted [the photos] to feel like. Josef was also a part of that process. There was a lot of back and forth about skin tones and how we want the ball court to look, the sky, the buildings, the basketball — even removing logos. For me, that was just a really fun process."
The first platform to share the photo series was Vogue Italia, followed by the Art Gallery of Ontario in the 2023 exhibition Feels Like Home. Now, they're on display once more at the Museum of Toronto.
While Howard is happy the photos continue to be on demand, he always looks to tie culture to his photos to add depth. He shares that people now seem to be curious about who the players are within the sport, beyond a face and a number. "Each individual person within those associations has something that they represent behind the scenes, and that happens to be their culture," Howard says. "That's the angle that we came up with for Jump Ball, and that was so long ago."
Howard will be one of four panelists discussing art, culture and basketball on a talk presented by the Museum of Toronto in September. The conversation will explore how basketball inspires artists across disciplines, from fashion to murals to performance. Howard hopes to share how crucial it is to tell stories that are happening in our cities and to explore how these stories shape the city.
Jenny Kay Dupuis is an educator and visual artist from Nipissing First Nation. Her work leans toward the Anishinaabe tradition of Woodland style art and pop art, using bright and vibrant colours. Home Game includes one of her digital paintings, called Space Hoops.
"I was thinking about that whole concept of the zero-gravity dunk," says Dupuis. "What would that be like if there was ever an opportunity for a basketball game to exist in space? It was a creative play on it."
She put herself in the astronaut's perspective, imagining a jump shot in space. The Anishinaabe Woodland style of art uses strong black lines, which she employs throughout the piece, along with bright oranges and purples. The image also shows energy fields and stars, which represent cosmic knowledge and the Indigenous teachings related to those themes. The rocket symbolizes cultural continuity, the artist says, as if it were to blast off and carry Indigenous identity onto other imagined worlds.
Space Hoops was created out of Dupuis' love of basketball, which she played for years as a teen. Dupuis finds it important to use the theme of sports in her art, especially when considering how many youths are now able to play the game and use it as a means to engage in community. There's a growing connection between Indigenous communities and basketball with the popularization of shows like Rez Ball. "There's been a big uptake of basketball in some cases because of what it does to support: building and developing one's sense of self … including thinking about teamwork and thinking about developing skills," Dupuis says.
Mallory Tolcher 's Hoop Dreams installation series focuses on the basketball net, replacing the standard mesh with intricate white skirts. "My work explores the intersection of femininity, strength and performance, challenging traditional ideas about who gets to be seen and celebrated in athletics," says Tolcher. "I'm constantly drawn to the aesthetic language of sport — uniforms, rituals, materials — and how they can hold stories of identity, resistance and beauty. Whether it's through pearls or fabrics or netting, I'm always trying to soften the space around sport while still honouring its intensity."
She finds the sport to be fast, emotional, expressive and deeply personal. She became obsessed with basketball as a teen, and now, like Howard, she finds herself curious about the players off the court. "It's more than a game," she says, "it's a lens."
This artist installed beautiful hand-made basketball nets around her hometown
For Tolcher, an important aspect of highlighting female representation in sport is recognizing those who paved the way. "Women and gender-diverse athletes have always been here," she says. "We just haven't always been given the same space, resources or spotlight. More inclusivity in basketball means more people get to see themselves in the sport, whether they're playing, coaching, commentating, creating or just a fan of the game. That kind of representation is really powerful. As a mom of a young girl, I want to be part of making sure that she can see herself within movement and athletics."
She says that the Toronto Tempo joining the WNBA is a huge moment, as it signals that women's basketball is being taken seriously at every level, while also creating new opportunities for youth, for creatives like herself and for the entire ecosystem of fans and culture-builders.
Curator Bria Dietrich wanted the Home Game exhibit to have a multitude of voices and perspectives, which included arts and culture. "It was really important that the exhibition reflected that basketball doesn't just impact the sport, but it also impacts the way that people move around the city and look in a city."
King hopes that people who visit the exhibit see the growing diversity of the city reflected in the entire exhibit — including the art — and appreciate the connectivity that the sport has given us.