Join us for the Toronto opening of ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home, an Indigenous-led exhibition organized by and first presented at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal. The exhibition will be on view in the Architecture and Design Gallery at 1 Spadina Crescent from October 25, 2023 – March 22, 2024.

The opening event will feature remarks from the co-curators and a performance by artist Geronimo Inutiq. Light refreshments will be served.

ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home was co-curated by Joar Nango (a Norway-based Sámi architect and artist), Taqralik Partridge (Associate Curator, Indigenous Art - Inuit Art Focus, Art Gallery of Ontario), Jocelyn Piirainen (Associate Curator, National Gallery of Canada) and Rafico Ruiz (Associate Director of Research at the CCA). The exhibition showcases installations by Indigenous designers and artists, reflecting on how Arctic Indigenous communities relate to land and create empowered, self-determined spaces of home and belonging.

The Daniels Faculty presentation of ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home is organized by Jeannie Kim, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream. The exhibition was originally mounted by the CCA and co-curated by Joar Nango (Sámi architect and artist), Taqralik Partridge (Associate Curator, Indigenous Art–Inuit Art Focus, Art Gallery of Ontario), Jocelyn Piirainen (Associate Curator, Indigenous Ways and Decolonization, National Gallery of Canada) and Rafico Ruiz (Associate Director of Research at the CCA). 

Born 1979 in Alta, Norway, Joar Nango is a Sámi architect and artist living in Norway. Nango’s work investigates nomads’ conceptions of space, territory and ideas of home. He focuses on different ways of dealing with materiality, movement and space.

Taqralik Partridge is an artist, writer and curator originally from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik. Previously the director of the Nordic Lab at SAW Gallery in Ottawa, where she brought together artists from across the circumpolar world to collaborate and create new work, she is currently Associate Curator, Indigenous Art–Inuit Art Focus at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She is also an adjunct curator at the Art Gallery of Guelph, where she is working on a series of exhibitions on the theme of Qautamaat/Everyday. Her mixed-media textile works have toured Canada and overseas and have been seen at the Owens Art Gallery (Sackville, NB) and at Mimosa House (London, UK).

Jocelyn Piirainen is an urban Inuk originally from Iqaluktuuttiaq, Nunavut. Previously the Associate Curator of Inuit Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and Qaumajuq, she is now Associate Curator, Indigenous Ways and Decolonization at the National Gallery of Canada. A graduate of Carleton University, Piirainen was educated primarily in the arts, particularly in film and new media. When not working as a curator, she works with analog photography and film in her artistic practice—mostly experimenting with Polaroids and Super 8 film—and hones her crochet and beading skills. She has contributed to publications such as Canadian Art, Canadian Geographic and Inuit Art Quarterly.

Rafico Ruiz is a settler (Northwestern Ontario/Ecuador) researcher and curator. His work addresses infrastructure building in the Arctic, post–global warming ice, and practices of settler accountability. Ruiz is the author most recently of Slow Disturbance: Infrastructural Mediation on the Settler Colonial Resource Frontier and the co-editor (with Melody Jue) of Saturation: An Elemental Politics, both published by Duke University Press. He is also the Associate Director of Research at the CCA.

Photomontage: Nicole Luke, Arctic Buildings, Nunavut, 2021. © Nicole Luke

Assembled from the private collection of Singapore-based RT+Q Architects, this exhibition showcasing the buildings of Le Corbusier (1887-1965) features dozens of scaled models of the iconic Swiss-French architect’s work. Through the years, it has been a tradition at RT+Q for interns to spend their first week studying and building a model of a Le Corbusier project, the aim being to acquaint them with his diverse design legacy.

This exhibition will run in the LWR Gallery until November 6.

RT+Q was founded in Singapore by Rene Tan and TK Quek in 2003. The physical models are the work of the firm’s interns, who traditionally spend the first week of their internships building a model of Le Corbusier’s architecture. Original supporters of the exhibition include Alliance Francaise Singapour (AF), Fondation Le Corbusier (FLC), National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore University of Technology & Design (SUTD) and Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA).

This temporary installation of student artwork in the Historic Stairwell between the second and third floors in the Daniels Building is a reflection of multiple and diverse interpretations of Black flourishing and diverse reflections of Blackness in design and in community.

In response to an open call by the Daniels Art Directive and the Daniels Faculty during the Winter 2023 term, these six artists offer their creative expression of Black traditions and futures of excellence. In alignment with the broad objectives of the University of Toronto’s Anti-Black Racism Report (2021) and the Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Higher Education: Principles, Actions and Accountabilities (2021), this installation celebrates and promotes Black art and representation in university spaces.

Artist Statements

Black Flourishing by Ally DeLuca 

“This work explores the concept of ‘Black Flourishing’ and the ample consciousness and understanding of black human power. The viewer will notice the portrait is in black and white, which conveys that race, ethnicity and one’s background do not impact one’s creative capabilities, which are represented by the bright and colourful explosion of imagination that is emanating from the subject’s mind.”

To Become by Renée Powell-Hines 

“I said to the sun, ‘Tell me about the big bang.’ The sun said, ‘It hurts to become.’ ” - Unknown

“To Become centres around my interpretation of change. The focus of this piece is the toll of change, and the impact of the hand, forever taking, on our natural environment, struggling to give. This concept of the toll of change can be seen and felt in many aspects of everyday life; in contrast, sometimes monotony can take just as much of a negative toll. A lack of change can perpetuate a tendentious system, and if that system alienates or neglects a set group of people, this creates a barrier to success. Unfortunately, the onus to enact change is often placed on that neglected group, which already struggles due to a lack of support and is then further weighed down with the responsibility to lift itself and its people up. They are forced to give every part of themselves to a system that holds one hand out and conceals a wealth of untapped resources in the other; but still, the alienated will press on, with the hope that the next generation will benefit from their timeless efforts.”

Boxed In by Kodi Ume-Onyido 

“In my acrylic piece, Boxed In, I explore the relationship between myself, a black student, and the work environment at the Daniels Faculty. In order to reveal the subtle yet extreme differences in experiences between myself and other students, I recreated the everyday happening of working in the studio. The architecture materials sprawled upon and under the table depict the willingness and tenacious work ethic that black students display, but also our responsibility to succeed under any circumstance. Ghosted figures interact with one another as I am surrounded by empty chairs in a deconstructed black box that symbolizes the discrete lack of relationality I feel as the only black male in second year. The box is “exploding,” rather than being completely enclosed, to represent the openness and inclusivity that Daniels focuses on and is progressively improving. This aligns with the theme of the open call due to the piece representing the common black experience at the Daniels faculty. Although the painting seems to show isolation, it actually promotes the idea of representation and multiculturalism that the University of Toronto strives to achieve and strengthen through the placement of chairs. Rather than being tucked in and unapproachable, the seats are scattered and facing figures that appear to have just gotten up, inviting them to once again take a seat at their leisure.”

Who We Are by Tamilore Ayeye 

“As Black students, we are often questioned about our identity and values but that should never be the case. I often ask myself, ‘Who are we?’ ‘What are the values that embody the Black community?’ My intention for this mural is to celebrate and honour the richness and diversity of Black culture and identity. I aim to showcase the words that highlight the resilience and strength of the Black community and to create a space that affirms Black students, staff and visitors in our school. Through this mural, I hope to empower and inspire Black students to embrace who they are and truly believe in their uniqueness within their heritage with pride and to recognize their full potential to thrive and succeed. I have chosen the values of ‘Bold, Love, Action, Courage, Kind’ as the words centres on the mural in a college with leaves in the background signifying growth as a community. These words are not just an answer to the question of this mural but to also embody the values and aspirations of the Black community and to inspire everyone who sees this mural to embody these values in their own lives. I believe that this mural will serve as a beacon of hope, resilience and affirmation for the black community at Daniels and I am excited to see the impact it has on the community at Daniels.” 

Black in the crux of Design by Julien Todd 

“I wanted to create a piece which depicted the connection Black people have with the construction of modern Turtle Island. I would describe the piece as constructivist. The building centralized in the artwork is a historic image of a building at Bloor and Bathurst, a historically Black neighbourhood in Toronto. It forms a trifecta image with an anonymous Black woman and a depiction of the mountain scape in Banff, Alberta, a place where, historically, Black people were excluded from bathing in the natural springs. This image is representative of the Black experience in Canada with regard to the natural landscape and urban setting. Black people have historically experienced exclusion in both settings yet remained in Canada and left a mark on the cultural fabric of the country. Bloor and Bathurst, often referred to as “Blackhurst,” was a haven for Black immigrants to the country and is a testament to their resilience. The piece depicts how, even though Black people immigrating to this country were not welcomed on the land, they still found connection and established a home. This home is represented as still in construction within the work. The work empowers the spirit of Black resilience and prides Black constructivist design in a social and physical context.”

See Me by Tomi Bamigbade 

“The art piece highlights the representation of Black identities and Black experience. Often Black people are put in a box, identified by their hair and other physical appearance. This artwork highlights that Black people should not be put in a box due to their physical features but be seen for who they are on the inside. They are people who are more than their appearance and are capable of accomplishing amazing things. This digital art piece is also meant to bring light to digital art and afrofuturism. Black people are capable of having a place in the technology world.”

The future of our planet depends, to a great extent, on the future of Antarctica. Yet the continent, which is known as the white desert, is largely neglected by the global community.

Curated by UNLESS, a non-profit agency devoted to interdisciplinary research on extreme environments threatened by the planetary crisis, Resolutions for the Antarctic: International Stations & the Antarctic Data Space is a multi-media exhibition showcasing the work of more than 200 scientists, architects and designers whose collective efforts to document, clarify and protect the uniqueness of the vast southern continent—a harbinger and a linchpin of our wider planet’s health—have global significance.

The exhibition will be the North American debut of work first displayed at the Venice Architecture Biennale and compiled in an award-winning book entitled Antarctic Resolution.

It will also see the launch of Resolutions for the Antarctic: International Stations & the Antarctic Data Space, a short film that tracks the evolution of Antarctica’s research stations, as well as the launch of the Antarctic Resolution Platform, an open-access site developed by UNLESS to enable the worldwide dissemination, downloading and translation of the multidisciplinary research conducted so far.  

The Daniels Faculty’s Architecture and Design Gallery is located on the lower level of the Daniels Building at 1 Spadina Crescent, just off the main (eastern) entrance. The Gallery is free and open to the public from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday to Friday, closed on weekends. Click here for more information on the space.

Photos © Louis De Belle

Curated by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum, this exhibition in the Larry Wayne Richards Gallery at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design provides a rare survey in Canada of her eponymous firm's work. Founded in Dhaka in 2005, Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA) is known for institutional, cultural and multi-residential projects defined by their close attention to climate adaptability, context, craft and history. Among its most acclaimed buildings is the Bait ur Rouf Mosque, awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016. Tabussum is this year's Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design at the Daniels Faculty.

Using Toronto as a laboratory, the study and exhibition Housing Multitudes: Reimagining the Landscapes of Suburbia unlocks the DNA of the suburb to create a composite “big picture” of how the urbanism that characterizes many North American cities can be transformed for the greater benefit of all.

Simultaneously lyrical and policy-conscious, the exhibition’s experimental format includes films/animations, vast panoramas and maps, graphic novel-like stories, and models that have all been conceived to challenge received thinking about the suburbs. The curators have purposely brought a degree of fiction to studies that have, in fact, been drawn from real sites and places as well as their histories, in order to engage new audiences and open questions about what the suburbs are and can become.

The goal of this endeavour is to engage a wide array of individuals and communities in reimagining our suburban landscapes and the possibilities these lands represent in order to encourage a future that is more socially engaged, equitable, ecologically resilient and beautiful.

Housing Multitudes was conceived and curated by Richard Sommer and Michael Piper of the Daniels Faculty in collaboration with Faculty colleagues, students and staff. All members of the University of Toronto community and the general public are welcome to visit the exhibition. For Gallery hours, click here.

Artist: Greg Ellwand
Curator: Sherry Chunqing Liu

A heartwarming, imagination-filled story unfolds, as Greg Ellwand documents the University of Toronto St. George vaccine clinic through his unique perspective as both a clinic staff member and artist-in-residence in 2021.

From frontline administrative staff to pharmacists in the back room, Ellwand’s intimate portrayals of people, medical devices, and special moments situate them in both documentative and imaginative futuristic spaces, showcasing a story that connects with vaccine recipients as well as medical practitioners.

Located in the building where the clinic was run, Clinic into the Future provides an evocative space that invites visitors to engage in not just emotional but also spatial dialogue with Ellwand’s vivid, vibrant and dream-like depictions of a monumental time in history, when the St. George vaccine clinic contributed to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, administering over 90,460 vaccines.

Click here to learn more about how the exhibit originally started.

Click here to read about how Daniels Faculty student Sherry Chunqing Liu curated the exhibit with the artist Greg Ellwand.

Dedicated to the clinic staff, especially Susan Camm. Sponsored by University of Toronto Facilities Services.

Photos of the exhibition by Mariam Matti.

Banner image: Photo by Sherry Chunqing Liu.

This group exhibition features thesis and capstone projects from Architecture, Forestry, Landscape Architecture, Urbanism and Visual Studies. Framed by ten questions, the projects emphasize the methods and processes enlisted in the act of imagining possible futures. The work featured in the exhibition is underscored by the events of this past year, which included a global pandemic, the forward march of a seemingly irreversible climate crisis, and sustained protests against social inequity and structural racism. What is the role of architecture, forestry, landscape architecture, urbanism, and visual studies in this context?

Featuring
Aisling Beers (BAAS)
Alexandra Farkas (FOR)
Maya Freeman (BAVS)
Natalie Heyblom (FOR)
Rida Khan (MUD)
Louisa Kennett (MLA)
Shivathmika (Shiva) Suresh Kumar (MARC)
Phat Le (MARC)
Gemma Robinson (BAVS)
Jennifer Chau Tran (MLA)

Exhibition Team:
Brandon Bergem
Aisling Beers
Gemma Robinson

Image credit: Harry Choi

The exhibition will be on view in the Larry Wayne Richards Gallery in the Daniels Building. The University of Toronto requires individuals present on campus to be vaccinated. Prior to attending the exhibition, U of T community members should upload their proof of vaccination and complete a self-assessment via UCheck. Visitors who cannot access UCheck should complete a COVID-19 contract tracing form; this form is also accessible via QR code at the Daniels Building.

Please consult the Daniels Faculty COVID-19 FAQs and UTogether hub for more information about visiting campus. 

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto is pleased to announce an online exhibition of the work of 2021 Master of Visual Studies graduate students Oscar Alfonso, Simon Fuh, Matt Nish-Lapidus, and Sophia Oppel. This virtual exhibition documents the four students' graduating projects, and acts as a portal to Alfonso’s reading-performances and digital publication.

The exhibition is produced as part of the requirements for the MVS studio degree at the Daniels Faculty, and continues an ongoing collaboration with the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

Visit the online exhibition by clicking here

Oscar Alfonso works with text, digital media, and installations. Their work, No estoy seguro en nuestros nombres / I’m not sure I remember all of our names involves the collection of stories from their relations — family, friends, mentors, colleagues, adopted aunts, and the occasional hook-up — brought together to share and inherit knowledge to a cluster of avocado trees. Born en La Ciudad de México and raised in Vancouver, their practice focuses on reconstructing a relationship to home. They are currently reflecting on what it means to "be away" and on who is not here. Nevertheless, they will always have their avocados.

Simon Fuh is an artist and writer that frequently makes temporary installations and collaborative projects that prod at both the potential and banality of being and thinking together. His research for the past year has focused on social memory and parties –– in particular, how remembering together can be its own site for becoming. His MVS exhibition presents a two-room immersive sound installation featuring audio of a close friend attempting to give directions to an after-hours venue over the phone while unseen speakers play the sound of dance music heard from the other side of a wall.

Matt Nish-Lapidus is an artist, writer, musician, and designer. He makes software, sounds, and texts probing the myth that computers need to be useful rather than beautiful. His current exhibition looks at the relationships between programming languages, computer cultures, poetry, and Kabbalah language mysticism. The installation A Path offers a real-time, computational micro-world meditating on the poetics and material of computation through recombination and repetition.

Sophia Oppel is an interdisciplinary arts practitioner and researcher interested in examining digital interfaces and physical architectures as parallel sites of power. Oppel deploys transparent substrates –– glass, mirror and the screen — as a framework for considering the paradoxes of legibility under surveillance capitalism. Oppel’s current work, being both opened up and flattened, considers both the complicity with, and refusal of, biometric capture on a bodily scale. Referencing the streamlined, clinical aesthetics of airports and luxury retail establishments, the work explores the perverse desire to participate in the flows of commodified self-image. 

Exhibition Zoom Reception:

Thursday, May 27, 5-7 p.m. Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82563431102

Programming:

Reading by Oscar Alfonso
La lectura / The reading
Sábado, 5 de Junio, 12:00 mediodía de la Ciudad de México hasta tarde.
Saturday, June 5, 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST till late. Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85272594939

We gratefully acknowledge project support from The Valerie Jean Griffiths Student Exhibitions Fund in Memory of William, Elva and Elizabeth.

Top image: Simon Fuh, Memory Theatre, 2021. Photograph by Toni Hafkenscheid.

The Art Museum at the University of Toronto is exhibiting the 2020 graduating projects of Master of Visual Studies graduate students Emily DiCarlo, Chris Mendoza, Brandon Poole, and Jordan Elliott Prosser.

This exhibition is produced as part of the requirements for the MVS degree at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

Because of COVID-19, visitors to this exhibition must pre-register for timed admission to the Art Museum. To reserve your timed ticket, visit the Art Museum website.

Take me to the Art Museum's ticketing page

Also, as part of the exhibition, Emily DiCarlo will be delivering a live reading, on Zoom, at 2 p.m. on November 4. For details, see the Art Museum's event listing.

The students participating in the exhibition are:

Emily DiCarlo, an artist and writer whose interdisciplinary work applies methodologies that often produce collaborative, site-specific projects. Evidenced through video, performance and installation, her research connects the infrastructure of time with the intimacy of duration.

Chris Mendoza, an artist-educator whose work unravels and is entangled in the geographical politics of narration — investigating questions of belonging through embodied and place-based research. Often articulated through material traces, ephemera, and written and oral histories, Chris’ work moves between performance, sculpture, video, and writing. Chris currently resides in Toronto.

Brandon Poole, an interdisciplinary artist. Having previously trained in photojournalism and philosophy, his work builds upon the inheritance of archival material to mediate the entwined histories and speculative futures of architecture, cinema, and simulation.

Jordan Elliott Prosser, who works with video and sculpture. Employing auto-ethnographic and documentary strategies, Jordan has returned to his hometown to chart a personal and communal identity. His new work explores the precarity of industrialized normativity through an embedded but critical empathy, invoking observational and surreal modes of representation to allegorize the contradictory present of the suburbs.

Top image: Artist holding image of River Don Straightening Plan, 1888, by Chris Mendoza. (City of Toronto Archives Fonds 200, Series 725, Item 134.)