Revisiting The Clinic: 30 Years Later

From 1992 to 1997, the Symbiosis Collective operated on the edges of Toronto’s art scene, staging site-specific exhibitions in abandoned buildings and disused sites. Founded by artists Michael Alstad and Steve Topping, Symbiosis emerged in the early 1990s as part of a broader surge of independent, artist-run experimentation across the city. These collectives created their own contexts for production and display, sidestepping the limitations of conventional gallery systems in favour of more autonomous and immediate explorations with place, context and history. Symbiosis’ interventions included exhibitions in an abandoned Royal Bank, the old Temperance Society headquarters, and, most infamously, a shuttered cosmetic surgery clinic at 215 Victoria Street — the site of their project The Clinic that ran from April 21- May 13, 1995. The Clinic: Art Inside a Site of Trauma In the spring of 1995, an otherwise forgotten surgical space reopened as a temporary art environment. Formerly home to the Institute for Restorative, Cosmetic & Liposuction Surgery, the site had been abandoned following the tragic death of Toni Sullivan, a 44 year-old woman who died after undergoing liposuction there. Her death sparked a coroner’s inquest and brought national scrutiny to the cosmetic surgery industry’s regulatory blind spots and rising popularity. Rather than obscure this violent legacy, Symbiosis made it the fulcrum of their exhibition. The Clinic transformed the surgical facility into a conceptual, critical zone. Using recovered medical files, equipment, and signage, the artists constructed installations that blurred the lines between critique, ritual, and spatial haunting. The show created an eerie, charged dialogue between the commodification of the body and the physical residue of a failed promise of transformation. Art, Bodies, and the Cost of Space The Clinic was powerful not only because of its subject — the commercialization and medicalization of the female body — but because it unfolded inside the very architecture of that system. The artists had time to inhabit the site, to dig through its remains, and to let the materiality of the space shape their thinking. That kind of access is increasingly rare. In 1990s Toronto, artists could occupy storefronts and empty buildings without prohibitive costs, layers of liability, or bureaucratic gatekeeping. Today, with skyrocketing rents, tightened insurance policies, and a city consumed by development, it’s very challenging for independent artists to mount experimental, site-specific work without institutional backing. At the same time, the cultural pressures around beauty, gender performance, and bodily perfection have only accelerated. The “ideal” female body is now curated in real time through social media, filtered selfies, and algorithm-driven aesthetics. If The Clinic responded to the rise of cosmetic surgery in the 1990s, a similar project today might have to contend with TikTok face, wellness cults, or the normalization of injectables. The stakes are no lower — but the spaces in which to unpack them have dwindled. That’s why revisiting The Clinic matters. It reminds us of what becomes possible when artists have both time and space to think critically — and when art is allowed to emerge not from a gallery blueprint, but from the city’s raw and contested ground. Symbiosis and the Collective City Archive The legacy of the Symbiosis Collective has recently been documented in the Collective City database — a vital archive tracing the history of artist-generated galleries and collectives in Toronto from the late 1980s to the present day. Through video interviews, transcripts, and documentation, Collective City maps how the experimental energy of groups like Symbiosis helped lay the groundwork for today’s sustainable artist-run centres. It reveals a history of artists taking control of context, collaborating outside of institutions, and reshaping the possibilities for what, and where, art could be. As we mark the 30th anniversary of The Clinic, Symbiosis stands as a reminder: when artists claim space for critical reflection, something more than art can happen — something communal, confrontational, and deeply necessary.

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