Diane Borsato: A Clean Place to Swim

Diane Borsato is an award-winning artist, writer, and educator who has worked closely with other artists and amateur naturalists, including coordinating a day-long foraging and stargazing event for amateur mushroomers and astronomers (Terrestrial/Celestial), creating a performance of silence and stillness with 100 beekeepers (Your Temper, My Weather), and planting a rare community apple orchard as public art (ORCHARD) along with many other multidisciplinary projects.

She has performed and exhibited across Canada at venues including the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Power Plant, and the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto; the Art Museum at the University of Toronto; Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity; the Esker Foundation, Calgary; the Vancouver Art Gallery; the National Art Centre, Ottawa; Fogo Island Arts and at the Toronto Biennial of Art; and internationally at galleries and museums around the world. She recently published Outdoor School: Contemporary Environmental Art (2021) co-edited with Amish Morrell, MUSHROOMING: The Joy of the Quiet Hunt (2022), and the artist book Snakes in the Library (2025) together with Alexandra Carter. Diane Borsato is also Associate Professor at the University of Guelph, where she teaches courses exploring social, site-responsive and environmental art practices. She lives and works in Toronto.