Winter Art Crawl - DesignTO Stops
Sometimes it’s all sunshine and rainbows and other times Toronto slingshots from Fall-like weather to a mid-winter blizzard overnight. This tricky weather occasionally affects Akin’s programming like today’s scheduled Winter Art Crawl. That being said, if any art crawl had to be cancelled due to weather conditions this created the perfect opportunity for folks planning to attend today’s event to create their own DesignTO Festival crawl over the next week.
DesignTO Festival is Canada’s leading (and largest) annual design festival that celebrates design as a multidisciplinary form of creative thinking and making, with over 100 exhibitions and events forming Toronto’s design week, January 17-26, 2020. Since 2011, DesignTO has been bringing communities together to celebrate design, by taking art and design out of the studio and into the urban realm.
Akin’s 2020 Winter Art Crawl consisted of 5 stops in Toronto’s Queen Street West and Ossington area, but you don’t have to stop there! The DesignTO Festival spreads across the city featuring many exhibitions, pop ups, window installations and more. Visit the festival’s website for full details and locations of all of this year’s projects.
We recommend checking out the following stops that would have been featured during today’s art crawl along with a few other notable pop ups.
Image Source: DesignTO Festival. Can’t Say Nothing (Lorem Ipsum, Moving Patterns).
Can’t Say Nothing (Lorem Ipsum, Moving Patterns)
Where: Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street, Toronto
Project Type: Exhibition
Dates: January 17-31, 2020
Using Lorem Ipsum text and the Photoshop background, ‘Can’t Say Nothing’ by Janina Anderson, turns signifiers of blankness into overlapping patterns, which are printed, mounted and stitched together. ‘Can’t say Nothing’ is a mixed media installation drawing from textile art, collage, painting, graphic design and sculpture. ‘Can’t say Nothing’ investigates the way systems of language, symbols and design affect meaning, and wonders: if even the expression of absence is so heavily coded, is it possible to express oneself without external mediation, and to what extent is it possible to truly “say nothing” at all?
Dying.exhibits
Where: Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street, Toronto
Project Type: Exhibition
Dates: January 12 - February 1, 2020
Dying.exhibits’ is an exhibition series on end of life, inviting participants to think about their relationship with life and death as a process; encouraging heart-level conversations about difficult, often taboo topics. By holistically engaging with life, including death, ‘Dying.exhibits’ becomes a catalyst for unpacking the uncomfortable. The exhibition serves as an opportunity to engage with diverse perspectives and participate in open discussion about death and dying through engaging art and design works and participatory experiences.
During DesignTO there will be several events under the ‘Dying.’ series, featuring work by Akin MOCA artist Laura Kay Keeling and Akin Alum David Salazar, with an opportunity to visit exhibits across Toronto. ‘Dying.’ is a collaboration between the Health Design Studio at OCAD U and Taboo Health.
Daydream Under the Penny Vine
Where: gh3*, 55 Ossington Avenue, Toronto
Project Type: Window Installation
Dates: January 14 - February 2, 2020
Sylvia Lee, glass designer and Creative Director of Jeff Goodman Studio is launching her first lighting product at DesignTO 2020. Titled the ‘Penny Vine’, this piece is a luminescent wall installation inspired by the humble copper penny and a silver coin vine, a favorite succulent houseplant.
The wall mounted system comes in various size is available in multiple lengths or ‘strands’ of lights which are cantilevered on delicate copper vines. Each ‘leaf’ is an illuminated opal glass circle with subtle copper edging. For the DesignTO 2020 exhibition, Lee chose a colour palette of leaves in delicate greens and pinks.
“For my inspiration, I’m always fascinated by vernacular, obsolete objects. The Silver Coin Vine plant started a thought process about coins and specifically pennies, which are not used anymore. I envisioned this copper strand light with simple, coin shaped leaves.” says Lee of her design. The theme of obsolete objects continues from her work in past exhibitions which were inspired by simple paper file folders and an abacus.
She goes on, “I wanted this to be scalable for designers and architects to be able to layer and have vines project into their space. For this DesignTO installation, I chose a subtle palette, but we could layer infinite glass colours into any configuration.”
‘Daydream Under the Penny Vine’ also includes a translucent, hand carved Temple Glass bench lit from the inside, a cast glass architectural product produced by Jeff Goodman Studio. Passersby will come upon a small glowing bench under a magically lit strands of illuminated leaves. Lee says, “I want viewers to experience a moment of departure in their urban commute.”
Image Source: DesignTO Festival. (AI) - Aesthete’s Items.
(AI) - Aesthete’s Items
Where: gravity pope, 1010 Queen Street West, Toronto
Project Type: Window Installation
Dates: January 17-26, 2020
‘(AI) – Aesthete’s Items’ is founded on the philosophy that beauty must be expressed and shared commonly. It should not be reserved for a limited circle of initiates, but rather be a part of our daily lives in the form of everyday objects.
Yaw Tony’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in use of colour and its connection to humanity. His artistic oeuvre has shifted from narrative art, into experimental research on the value of colour and its impact on human behaviour. The value determines the worth and worth determines the significance of each colour.
Yaw Tony’s approach to aesthetics and beauty is an intriguing invitation to explore an eclectic, colourful, language. His work draws viewers into a resplendent world of visual journeys where artistry and character go hand-in-hand. The majority of his artwork is on 100% silk or natural fabrics, the aesthetic and design concepts are influenced by the sophisticated details of African adages, combined with elements from western culture. It is the “gameo” – “gem” – “marriage”, the fusion of two distinct elements into one. All the patterns, motifs and details are hand drawn, painted, and then transferred into colour to give them form — this is when the stories come to life. The scarf collection is the first stage in a larger series of applications for the Life Liveth brand, whose maximalist aesthetic is then applied to furniture, wallpaper, decorative items, textiles, art prints and installation and so much more.
Yaw Tony breaks all colour rules to define all colour rules. He strongly believes that all colours complement each other, one just has to know what they are doing. Take a look at nature, it consists of many colours at a given time and they all work beautifully.
Image source: Erin Candela. Installation view of Akin MOCA artist Emmie Tsumura’s work at CUTMR20.
Come Up to My Room
Where: Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto
Project Type: Exhibition
Dates: January 16-19, 2020
‘Come Up To My Room’ (CUTMR) is an annual 3-day alternative design exhibition created and produced by the Gladstone Hotel. Art and design intersect, with the historic hotel becoming a platform for site-specific installations. Visitors can explore, discover and engage in conversation with the artists. Different from our 37 permanent artist-designed hotel rooms, CUTMR presents temporary projects that occupy and alter spaces in dramatic, conceptual, or experimental ways.
Artists are selected based on their body of work, not on detailed proposals, and they are invited to challenge themselves and try new things in this unconventional setting. This model allows for the evolution of ideas, risk-taking and an element of surprise. Participants use art and design to converse, connect, collaborate and construct delight in the unexpected.
Projects are presented by individuals, collectives, and multidisciplinary teams.
Image source: MUKË
Other notable 2020 DesignTO Festival projects include:
Design Collection @ stackt (IN RESIDENCE)
Where: stackt market, #1-112, 28 Bathurst Street, Toronto
Project Type: Exhibition
Dates: January 17-26, 2020
During the festival, local design duo MUKË (Akin co-director Michael Vickers and Akin co-founder Michael Dellios) will move the contents of its studio (furniture, plants, pets, maquettes, materials and more) into a shipping container at stackt — enveloping it as a site to showcase new and recent work, but also inviting visitors to engage directly with our process, the practices of our Toronto peers, and one another through live programming.
100 Vases
Where: The Shop, 1485 Dupont Street, Toronto
Project Type: Exhibition
Dates: January 24-25, 2020
‘100 Vases’ is inspired by the possibilities presented when objects come together, and the dialogue that happens between them. Spearheaded by ceramicist Michelle Organ, and artist and designer, Dasha Valakhanovitch, the two day event is a showcase of diversity in contemporary clay design, featuring work by Akin MOCA artist Erin Candela.
Future Retrospectives
Where: Harbourfront Centre, Artport Gallery, 235 Queens Quay West, Toronto
Project Type: Exhibition
Dates: January 17 - March 29, 2020
‘Future Retrospectives’ is a group exhibition featuring the work of eleven local and international artists and designers, including Akin Ossington artist Jessica Thalmann, unified by a shared methodology: using the past as a lens through which we imagine the future. It asks, “what will the future look like, and how did we get there?”
Light is Magnetic
Where: ergoCentric Showroom and Store, 37 King Street East
Project Type: Window Installation
Dates: January 17-26, 2020
Light is energy. It encompasses a spectrum of electromagnetic radiation much of which exists beyond our visible experience. This is the light that can not be seen manifest in radio waves, infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma rays. “My art is inspired by the physics of light as I seek to find ways to portray energy. ‘Light is Magnetic’ is an exhibition that brings together my recent experiments in light sculpture. It will include sculptures that integrate light or reflective elements with other conceptual pieces that explore the connection between light and energy.” - Akin MOCA artist, Tonya Hart
The Sky is Falling
Where: Knife Fork Book, Mezzanine, Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street
Project Type: Exhibition
Dates: January 17-26, 2020
Visual artist, designer and poet Jessica Hiemstra of Akin Lakeshore creates an abstracted paper sky on the ceiling of Toronto’s only all-poetry bookstore, Knife Fork Book. Using watercolour paper, thread and washes of Genzäh Handmade Watercolours paint, Hiemstra’s sky is one that is torn and sewn back together. This sky has tangled stitching, punctures, long dangling threads, and fragments of poetry sewn into it. Independent bookstores and especially those that specialize in theatre, poetry, music and art are becoming rarer and rarer. Knife Fork Book is an ephemeral place. It continues to exist because its sky continues to be held together by delicate threads.
