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Canada’s largest annual design festival features OCAD U creators

DESIGNwith home office

Image courtesy of DESIGNwith.

The DesignTO Festival, Canada’s leading and largest annual design festival, returns to the city from January 20 to 29, 2023. Celebrating design as a multidisciplinary form of creative thinking and making, the festival features more than 100 projects online and in person, including dozens of works by OCAD University faculty, students, alums and staff.

“OCAD U is proud to showcase a breadth of ambitious, creative and excellent talent at the DesignTO Festival every year,” says Dr. Dori Tunstall, Dean of OCAD U’s Faculty of Design. “This is one of the most significant design events in Canada, sparking joy and appreciation for design and its important role in creating a better world. I encourage everyone to attend.” 

A range of exhibitions, talks, workshops and installations will immerse attendees in the world of design in all its forms, including architecture, fashion, furniture and interiors.

There are many opportunities to check out exhibitions, talks and installations by OCAD U talent for the duration of the festival! 

African Art, Architecture & Design: The Lost History Pages
January 20 to 29 at Remote Gallery, 568 Richmond Street West

A curated gallery that showcases traditional and contemporary works of African architecture, interiors, furniture and décor through design-based research, with works by student Audrie Williams, in the Environmental Design - Interior Design Specialization program.

At The Chair Factory
January 20 to February 12 at the plumb, 1655 Dufferin Street – Basement – Alleyway Entrance
Reception on January 20 from 6 to 9 p.m.

An in-person exhibition with works by alum Liam Crockard (BFA Integrated Media, 2010) and Ian Willms. Drawing a connection between art-spaces and their former lives at industrial sites, Crockard and Willms’s project considers how production – of meaning, of value – continues long after the whistle blows, and the cards are punched.

BUT I STILL HOPE YOU SEE THIS
January 20 to 31 at Merchant of York, 235 Queens Quay West
Reception on January 21 from 3 to 4 p.m.

BUT I STILL HOPE YOU SEE THIS is a window installation by textile book artist Olivia Mae Sinclair. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Craft and Design at Sheridan College and recently graduated from OCAD University’s Interdisciplinary Master’s in Art, Media and Design program. Olivia is a current Artist-in-Residence at Harbourfront Centre.

Democracy in Motion
January 20 to 29 at Aquavatos' future showroom, 158 Front Street, Unit 110

An in-person window installation with alum Ian Chalmers (1989) as a participating artist, ‘Democracy in Motion’ is an original multi-media installation exploring the visualization of an existing data set about the state of democracy in countries worldwide. It includes a dance film, musical score, data projection, and display of 3D crystalline-shaped models inspired by the data.

Democratizing the Creation of Furniture
January 20 to 27 at DESIGNwith, 220 Yonge Street (Level 2, North Corridor next to Marks and Canadian Tire)
Reception on January 21 from 5 to 7 p.m.

Associate Professor Ranee Lee is the founder of DESIGNwith, which is hosting a furniture collection exhibition, designed by Lee alongside current Industrial Design students Ernesto Ramirez and Katya Koroscil, who is also a DESIGNwith intern, and Lee Fletcher. Tabletop place settings on display are plates from One Lovely Hour by Ranee Lee and Amanda Huynh. View work by students and OCAD U competition winners Brandon Siow, Prem Thakkar, Senthurri Thiruchenthooran, and furniture designers from Sheridan College. DESIGNwith has also partnered with Frontier and the Pratt Institute to further activate the collective. 

Design Innovation in Canada
January 21, 3 to 4:30 p.m. at OCAD U, 100 McCaul Street

Assistant Professor Helen Kerr will be a panelist at this in-person talk featuring design experts participating in a roundtable. This event is hosted by the IDSA-Toronto (Industrial Designers Association of America) chapter with the support of OCAD U.

Dying.exhibits
January 11 to 31 at Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street

Reception on January 19 from 6 to 9 p.m.

Dr. Kate Sellen, Director of the Health Design Studio, is one of the founders of the ‘Dying.series’. Dr. Sellen is a co-curator of ‘Dying.exhibits’, an in-person exhibition series on end of life, inviting participants to think about their relationship with life and death.

Elfy Castro: Nature, “LOOK AT ME!…I AM SUBLIME AND SUPREME”

January 21 to March 19 at Harbourfront Centre: BIG Vitrine, 235 Queens Quay West

An in-person window installation by Elfy Castro, an MFA (Interdisciplinary Art, Design and Media) candidate at OCAD U and a former Artist-in-Residence at Harbourfront Centre. The installation celebrates nature’s perfect design that took millions of years to create.

Interior Design Show
January 19 to 22 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, South Building, 222 Bremner Boulevard

Associate Professor Ranee Lee is the founder of DESIGNwith, which will be a part of the Interior Design Show, with a focus on sustainability and the circular economy, during Design Week and the DesignTO Festival.

Maya Desai, Associate Professor and Chair of Environmental Design, and Assistant Professor Matthew Hickey are featured speakers at the event. Several alums are also speaking.

Language Structures
January 20 to 29 at Worth Gallery, 830 Dundas Street West
Artist talk on January 28 from 4 to 5 p.m.

Sculptural works exploring relationships between typography, architecture and social space, by Assistant Professor Paul Aloisi. An interdisciplinary experiment testing the confluence of typography and architecture; revealing the structural potential of a communicative exoskeleton; examining thresholds of two and three dimensions.

Navigating the Folds
January 21, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at OCAD U, 100 McCaul Street

This in-person VR experience was created by current and former textiles faculty members in the Material Art & Design program at OCAD U, including current Associate Professor DorieMillerson, and the Fashion program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Attendance is limited and requires pre-booking. Navigate through a virtual landscape while listening to the stories of Canadian academics and students in craft. 

One Lovely Hour, A Dining Experience
January 24, 5 to 11 p.m. at R&D Restaurant, 241 Spadina Avenue

Please note that this event is sold out.

Associate Professor Ranee Lee collaborates with Amanda Huynh, industrial designer and professor from Pratt Institute, along with Eric Chong, Canada's first MasterChef, to envision what an inclusive, thoughtful mealtime would look like when design intersects with aging, culture and memory. Guests will take home custom ceramic plates designed by Lee and Huynh.

ROM After Dark: DesignTO
January 20, 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. at the Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen’s Park

Celebrate the launch of Canadian Modern, ROM’s new original exhibition spanning more than 80 years of fashion, furniture, jewellery, and electronics, which includes eight emerging designers from OCAD U: Anthia Barboutsis (BDes Material Art & Design 2021), Elfy Castro (Interdisciplinary Master's in Art, Media and Design, 2024), Rachel Leung (BDes Graphic Design, 2026), Stephanie Singh (Interdisciplinary Master's in Art, Media and Design, 2023), Khalalelo Sithole (BDes Material Art & Design, 2020), Dan Cui (BDes Industrial Design, 2023), Harcharan Jagdev (BDes Industrial Design, 2022) and Pei Hsuan (Peter) Huang (BDes Industrial Design, 2023).

Six works from eight OCAD U designers were selected for display by a jury of distinguished experts, including Dean Dr. Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall, OCAD U Faculty of Design; Assistant Professor Howard Munroe, OCAD U Faculty of Design; and Dr. Rachel Gotlieb, lead curator of Canadian Modern.

If you are a member of the OCAD U community and your DesignTO project is not listed above, please contact csharma@ocadu.ca.