Three X Five — the 2016 Visual Studies undergraduate thesis exhibition — will feature the work of 15 Daniels Faculty students. These students spent the full 8 month duration of their fourth year exploring a final project using such mediums as photography, video and sound installation, physical installation, painting, and drawing. 

The exhibition will feature work by:

Connor Buck
Shannon Gagnon
Chantal Hassard
Aliya Karmali
Andrew Keung
Jiemin Lin
Sara Mozafari
Miyoshi Nagao
Naichen Pan
Bethany Pile
Anton Skorishchenko
Tawny Stoiber
Winnie Wu
Vicky Yang
Ru Yap

The opening reception will take place from 6 PM - 9 PM on Friday, April 15 in the North Borden Building, 563 Spadina Crescent. Refreshments will be provided. The show will also run from 12-5 PM on Saturday, April 16 and Sunday, April 17.

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design is pleased to present Lo-Fab, a new exhibition featuring work by MASS Design Group. MASS’s work explores how architecture can address social challenges, effect systemic change, and mobilize communities. 

Lo-Fab – locally fabricated – speaks to MASS’s approach to the design and building process, which highlights and scales local innovation and ideas, hires local labor, and uses local materials.

Lo-Fab showcases two projects: The GHESKIO Cholera Treatment Center in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti; and the never-before exhibited Ilima Primary School in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

Please join us for a reception celebrating the exhibition — which will include a screening of two new short films about MASS Design Group’s work — on Thursday, March 31, from 6:30pm to 9:00pm.

The University of Toronto Shelley Peterson Student Art Exhibition showcases the artistic excellence of undergraduate students in the University of Toronto’s tri-campus visual studies programs. Selected for artistic merit and originality, these works highlight the artists’ diverse and experimental practices. Among the works, various thematic resonances emerge organically. Many use technologies as tools to manipulate the body and confront perceived identities, while others foreground the passing of time and its powerful effect on the self.

Featuring work by Daniels Faculty Visual Studies students Ameen Ahmed, Seo Eun “Sunny” Kim, Charlene Lo, Alvin Luong, Miyoshi Nagao,  Naichen Pan, Maximilian Suillerot,  and Yi Zhang.

Also featuring the work by U of T students in other visual studies programs Patrick Atienza, Daniel Bernal, Olivia Brouwer, Carol Cheong, Allison Clayton, Rebecca Dedrick, Min Joo “Emily” Jung, Katarina Kaneff, Shavon Madden, Matthew Morales, Dahyun Nam, Royce Wei, Shu­han “Suzanne” Yeh, Audrey Yip, Muzhen “Suzie” Zhang.

Curated by Master of Museum Studies Students Samantha Purvis-Johnston, Katelyn Roughley and Janine Zylstra.

The Art Museum is pleased to welcome Renée van der Avoird, Associate Curator at the MacLaren Art Centre as a Guest Curatorial Mentor, and Jon Davies, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, as the Juror for the 2016 exhibition.

A composition by Emelie Chhangur
With arrangements by Diane Borsato, Aleesa Cohene, Erika DeFreitas, Derek Liddington, Gertrude Stein, and Terrarea

The tableau has come off the wall.

This exhibition is a rehearsal for Gertrude Stein’s 1922 play Objects Lie on a Table. It is also a dramaturgical proposition for its contemporary staging and reception. Objects Lie on a Table is a “still life” but its composition is not simply what is fixed in the frame, static in the picture. In this non-narrative play, a constellation of activities—of objects and people coming and going—dynamically shapes its form through an arrangement that is never resolved: in Stein’s “still life” the play of objects and relations that constitute “dramatic action” are only ever “equal to its occasion” (105). As a still-life-in-movement, Objects Lie on a Table playfully performs and plays around with pictorial conventions, as well as doing other strange and funny things. So we shall see.

Objects Lie on a Table could be considered a conversation between material objects and the spaces and people that shape and are shaped by their presence, their proximity, and their purposes. The play is a compositional experiment that takes the still life genre as a prompt to reconsider relations between subjects and objects (agency) or foreground and background (gestalt) or parts and wholes (mereology) and propose new ways of thinking arrangement that, in turn, arrange new ways of thinking. Just as Stein’s still life was composed in the continuous present—a mode of writing she likened to the pictorial innovations of her contemporaries, such as the painters Picasso or Cézanne—our rehearsal for her play today is developed as an iterative form (the rehearsal) through which to think, not about objects already arranged, but rather to think through objects that make new arrangements. We take our cue from the “nuns” that open the play. Perhaps a symbol of order and restraint, these nuns are in fact playing with objects, having “fun with funny things” (105), altering arrangements, in other words, messing with the system.

In 1922, Stein was asking questions in her time period that are equally relevant to ours—questions about relationality, systems theory, process thinking, and ontology of objects. In Rehearsal for Objects Lie on a Table subject matter becomes the matter of subjects and its business the subjects of matter—a still life for the 21st century, perhaps. Rehearsal for Objects Lie on a Table likewise is composed of the arrangements proposed by contemporary visual artists Diane Borsato, Aleesa Cohene, Erika DeFreitas, Derek Liddington, and Terrarea. Their practices offer new possibilities for thinking through connections made in the continuous present as ways to explore the new time-sense of this historic play—now as a composition in an art gallery and as an exhibition making its own arrangements.

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This exhibition is produced as part of the requirements for the MVS degree in Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto.

This exhibition is part of the graduating Master of Visual Studies 2016 cohort, including:
How a Living Day is Made, curated by cheyanne turions, featuring the work of Aisha Sasha John, Walter Scott and Rachelle Sawatsky at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto Scarborough Campus, 21 April–11 June 2016. Opening reception: Thursday, 21 April 2016, 6–8 PM.

the distance between nowhere and now here, curated by Charlotte Lalou Rousseau at the Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga. 20 April— 22 May, 2016. Presented in collaboration with the Images Festival and the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, and supported in part by the Department of Visual Studies (UTM) through the Graduate Expansion Fund.

Visit the exhibition website here.

The Art Museum at the University of Toronto is pleased to exhibit the graduating projects of the 2016 Master of Visual Studies graduate students: Gillian Dykeman, Elisa Julia Gilmour, Daniel Joyce, and Fraser McCallum.

Gillian Dykeman is a Canadian artist whose research and projects describe the sexual politics of landscape through and intersectional feminist and post-colonial framework. Dykeman seeks inroads to subjectivity and agency by working across mediums and disciplines such as performance, sound, installation, and art criticism. Her work has been exhibited nationally and abroad, and she is the host and producer of Working (it) Out, the ArtSlant podcast.

Elisa Julia Gilmour is an emerging Canadian artist producing analogue photographic and cinematic work with a particular interest in portraiture. In her installations she captures moments of ephemerality in human experience. Her work has been exhibited at the Ryerson Image Centre Student Gallery and at the Art Gallery of Mississauga.

Daniel Joyce is an interdisciplinary artist currently residing in Toronto. His works often utilize found objects, re-appropriated forms, and the participation of others. Joyce is interested in art’s social functions, as something with the ability to bring communities and histories together.

Fraser McCallum is a Toronto-based artist. His graduating project Come Live With Us exhumes and critically examines the history and legacy of Rochdale College, Toronto's infamous experiment in alternative education and communal living. He was a recent participant in Demos: Life in Common at the Banff Centre (2015), and a research fellow for the Curatorial Incubator program at Vtape (2013).

Clockwise from top left: Gillian Dykeman, Dispatches from the Feminist Utopian Future (teleporter II), single channel video, 10:30, 2016; Elisa Julia Gilmour, Éperdument (Madly), three-channel video installation, color, 22:42, Corsican and French with English subtitles, 2016; Fraser McCallum, Come Live With Us, still from HD Video, 21:00, 2016; Daniel Joyce, There is a better world coming, live webcam video feed, 2016. Courtesy of the artists.

Commissioned by the Faculty, Peter MacCallum has been documenting the revitalization of One Spadina Crescent — the future home of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design — since February, 2014.

Originally built as a vista to the lake along Spadina Avenue, and later home to the Knox College and the Connaught Laboratories, One Spadina Crescent is one of Toronto’s most prominent and historic addresses. Its renewal, now underway, represents the largest architecture school expansion ever undertaken in Canada. The project at One Spadina is the University of Toronto’s leading development in design education, research, and outreach on how to build more sustainable, beautiful, and socially just cities.

Camping is both locative practice and timeless process.

—Charlie Hailey, Campsite (2008)

A foundational myth of North America is our collective relationship to the expansive, often rugged, and remote national landscapes. From Thoreau’s cabin in the woods, to 19th century cottages offering urbanites respite from the city in the summer, the notion of retreat and the restorative role of immersive landscape experiences has formed part of the North American conscience.

Camping in North America did not develop on a large scale until after World War II, when increased leisure time, car access, and the possibility of camping with motorized vehicles greatly expanded the activity. This growth was served by public and commercial campsites which offered a range of camping experiences.

Modern day camping is the product of multiple, simultaneous evolutions over the past century: legislation that created national parks; the evolution of camping gear which shadowed the advent of new materials and technologies; and transformations in the actual configuration and layout of campsites. Private campgrounds catered to recreational vehicles by offering paved parking areas in picturesque locations. Public camp grounds, often in national or provincial parks offered remote campsites and more accessible car camping. The layout of most campsites embrace a suburban plan, even with cul-de-sacs. A distribution of camping plots are sheltered by trees but within viewing and hearing distance of each other. The car pulling into each lot serves as the first act of setting up camp.

The enduring appeal of camping over the past century is driven by the desire to escape modernity, and a primal interest in the “primitive hut.” The desire for immersive experiences by reducing the envelopes and infrastructures that traditionally separate us from our environment. Yet, we are increasingly far from this experience, embracing a suburban relationship to wilderness. The architect Charlie Hailey identifies camping as a phased process: “We leave home, we arrive at site, we clear an area, we make and then finally break camp before departing.” (Hailey, 2008)

With so much attention placed on gear and material innovation, little attention has been paid to the campsite itself. This project foregrounds the campsite as a design question. Is there a possibility for other forms of collectivity in the remote? The Making Camp series of proposals consider new possibilities of collective camping and the processes they entail. It questions the role of the campsite, the experiences enabled by it, and the environments created by camping infrastructures. The project highlights five possible formats for camping that synchronize environment and spatial order. The designs explore how campers related to each other, how camping rituals are enacted and inform spatial order, and how the campsite interacts with its context.

Making Camp is returning from acclaimed success at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial, which ran from October 3, 2015 until January 3, 2016. The work has been expanded to include new drawings. Free copies of the six custom camping pamphlets will be available on opening night January 20.

Project Team:

Lateral Office: Lola Sheppard, Mason White, and Alex Bodkin with Miriam Alexandroff, Quinn Greer, Sarah Gunawan, Kinan Hewitt, Laurence Holland, Daniela Leon, Karan Manchanda, and Safoura Zahedi.

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture: Thomas Abromaitis, Johnny Bui, Paul Kozak, Deagan McDonald.

Printing support from Creative Silhouettes, Weller Publishing, and Toronto Image Works.

Support:

The project is generously supported by the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

Media:

"Windy Biennial," Architect's Newspaper, September 21, 2015.

"Toronto’s Lateral Office Makes Camp at the Chicago Architecture Biennial," Azure, Erin Donnelly, October 3, 2015.

"10 Highlights from the Chicago Architecture Biennial," Metropolis, Zach Mortice, October 4, 2015.

"Chicago Architecture Biennial plays host to a sprawling exhibition of ideas," The Globe and Mail, Alex Bozikovic, October 23, 2015.

"Lateral Office redesigns the Canadian campsite for the 21st Century," Dezeen, November 13, 2015.

"Review> On Horizons," Architect's Newspaper, Todd Gannon, December 21, 2015.

"What to See at the Chicago Architecture Biennial—and How to See It," Chicago Magazine, Whet Moser, Dec 24, 2015.

Join us for Eyeball — the annual undergraduate Visual Studies exhibition and party — on Friday, December 11. Refreshments and cash bar!

The Daniels Faculty will host an exhibition as part of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI) conference Architecture in Perspective 30. The work of many architectural illustrators chosen for exhibition by jury will be on display. The exhibition will open during the conference on Thursday, October 15 in the Eric Arthur Gallery and will run until Friday, November 13, 2015.

ASAI was founded in 1986 as a professional organization to represent the business and artistic interests of architectural illustrators throughout North America and around the world. ASAI’s principal mandate was and remains the fostering of communication among its members, raising the standards of architectural drawing, and acquainting the broader public with the importance of such drawings as a conceptual and representational tool in architecture. Membership in the organization is not limited to professional illustrators, but is open to architects, designers, teachers, students, corporations, and anyone engaged in the serious pursuit of architectural drawing.

The principal means of achieving the organization’s goals is Architecture in Perspective, an annual international competition, exhibition and catalogue which has included work by many of the most accomplished contemporary architectural illustrators from around the world. Each year approximately sixty pieces are chosen for exhibition by a jury of respected professionals in the fields of architecture, illustration, photography, fine art, or design education. The artwork deemed to be the year’s most outstanding work is accorded the organization’s highest award, The Hugh Ferriss Memorial Prize. By providing not only award recognition, but also a forum for the practitioners of this art form, the American Society of Architectural Illustrators has focused attention on an increasingly diverse, yet refined level of work. With a large international membership, the work of the Society's members has become the touchstone for many of the most eloquent voices and hands in the field.