Marina Dempster

This quartet of photographs was taken on March 24th, 2025, the day my daughter Paloma shared the news that a sixteen-year-old boy — known to her through school — was shot and killed by a nineteen-year-old ‘friend’ the night before in a downtown Toronto apartment. It marked the second time a teenage boy in her circle had been lost to gun violence by another teen within the span of a few months. Yonadab Dar on March 23rd, 2025 and Mohamed Doumbouya July 8, 2024, also sixteen. I found myself taking these photographs while walking the pavement, holding an urgent yet impossible desire to understand what had happened — and what was happening in our city.

YONA WAS HERE

The chalkboard in my daughter’s room.  A boy’s signature – Yona – remains there, left during a visit with friends a couple of years ago. “I can’t ever erase it,” she said.

CLIPPED

Evidence of the disquiet of the city – refuse, cigarette butts, and a severed wing.

SWEPT

Street sweepings collected after the morning rain include bits of road, salt, earth, and debris that form a gritty coalescence of a dark heart.

CHARMED

Inspirited by my daughter’s own charm creations, this creation made from charms acquired on Queen Street on the way home, is a contemplation on how she and her friend community may process the experience. The charm necklace and its amulets become a protective habitation, a dwelling place to balance teenage optimism and insecurity about the future.

How are teens arming themselves?

Proceeds from the sale of this work, after printing expenses, will be donated to MJKO Boxing, a youth charity in South Parkdale, Toronto.

MJKO uses leadership training to promote positive, healthy lifestyle choices for youth. With certified coaches, MJKO builds Community Champions by focusing on the needs of the whole person through two streams: non-contact (recreational), and contact boxing (competitive), which includes physical training and mental skills training (visualization and meditation).  MJKO follows a sequence called the Hierarchy of Needs, which has five essential components: physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, self-esteem and confidence, and self-actualization.