Image: Pachinko Games (2020-2021) by OCAD University Faculty of Design Professor Jason Lujan.
DesignTO 2022 features OCAD U creators
Canada’s largest design festival, DesignTO, opens in Toronto tomorrow. From January 21 to 30 more than 100 projects will be presented online and in person, celebrating design’s unique power to address needs, improve lives and inspire innovation.
Ambitious works by dozens of OCAD University students, faculty, alumni and staff will be on view in galleries, storefront windows and outdoor spaces across the city.
In its 12th year, DesignTO celebrates the practices of emerging and experienced multidisciplinary creators. Through a broad range of exhibitions, online talks, virtual workshops and installations, the festival brings design, in all its forms, including architecture, fashion, furniture and interiors, from the studio to the urban environment.
“DesignTO is one of the most significant design events in Canada,” noted Dr. Dori Tunstall, Dean of OCAD U’s Faculty of Design.
“I am always so proud of the students, alumni and faculty who participate in the festival each year. They are showing tangible manifestations of OCAD U’s Respectful Design ethos to the world,” she continued.
There are many opportunities to view works that are part of DesignTO outdoors, via the festival’s more than 40 window installations.
In addition to the festival’s exhibition programming, DesignTO annually presents a symposium that features local and international leaders in the field of design. This year, the event will be held online and is titled, No Such Thing as Normal. Faculty of Design Professor Dr. Jutta Treviranus will be featured alongside 10 other experts to discuss inclusive design and new approaches.
Check out the list below of exhibitions, talks and installations featuring members of the OCAD University community!
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DesignTO Symposium: No Such Thing as Normal
Featuring:
Dr. Jutta Treviranus, Faculty of Design Professor
January 25 to 26, 2022, 6 to 8 p.m.
Online
DesignTO’s seventh annual symposium brings 11 multidisciplinary experts together to discuss how we can dismantle the long-accepted idea of “normal” in order to design for diversity, specifically in the context of a global pandemic.
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Circular Over Linear
Featuring works and participation by:
Ranee Lee, Faculty of Design Associate Professor
Deanna Badi, BDes fourth-year, Industrial Design
Eske Schiralli, BDes 16, Industrial Design
Walter Yim, MDes second-year, Design for Health
Launching January 24, 2022
Online
Circular Over Linear asks viewers to consider where our things come from and where they end up. The online exhibition includes a collection of soft goods that reflect on the sustainability of materials.
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Designing for Futures of Well-being
Organized by:
Nadine Hare, Faculty of Design Instructor
Ranee Lee, Faculty of Design Associate Professor
Renn Scott, Faculty of Design Instructor
Prototypes designed by OCAD U undergraduate and graduate students
January 22 to 30, 2022
AO Artspace
62 Geary Ave.
In person
This exhibition explores how design can bring into being more healthy and dignified futures through two central themes: designing for dignity in aging and innovations in personal protective equipment (PPE) design.
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Dirty Sweep
Featuring work by:
Lauren Schaffer, Continuing Studies Instructor
January 21 to 31, 2022
17 Withrow Ave.
In person
This exhibition features small sculptural works and field recordings in video and audio form.
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Dying.exhibits
Co-curated by:
Dr. Kate Sellen, Faculty of Design Associate Professor
Postponed
Artscape Youngplace
180 Shaw St.
In person
Dying.exhibits is an exhibition series that invites participants to think about their relationship with death and dying.
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Enclosure + Exclusion: A Visual Treatise
Featuring work by:
Susan Campbell, Faculty of Design Instructor
Postponed (to July 2022)
Artscape Youngplace, Hallway Galleries, 2nd Floor
180 Shaw St.
In person
In this exhibition Susan Campbell considers how urban environments are manipulated and shaped. Her process of apprehending inscriptions and boundary marks found on site explores societal patterns of impermanence and exclusion, perpetuated by technological developments in the production of space.
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Here & Now
Featuring work by:
Davin Cowper, BDes 13, Industrial Design
Postponed
Stylegarage
78 Ossington Ave.
In person
Teaming up with furniture retailer Stylegarage, Krebs will present an installation that features his new hand-woven floor pillow collection.
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HOME Beautification signed by Yaw Tony
Featuring work by:
Yaw Tony, BDes 13, Environmental Design
January 21 to 30, 2022
italDESIGN Showroom
325 King St. East
In person
HOME Beautification presents everyday home decor pieces stamped with maximalist beauty.
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In the Family
Featuring work by:
Filipa Pimentel, BDes 08, Ceramics
January 20 to February 1, 2022
Saudade
1191 Dundas St. W.
Window Installation
In the Family is a collection of new work created by a dynamic group of artists. Together they explore themes of family, home and heritage.
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Libations for Liberated Living
Featuring work by:
Gord Peteran, Faculty of Design Professor
Meichen Waxer, Lead, Graduate Recruitment, Alumni & Community Engagement
Alastair Martin, BFA 18, Sculpture and Installation
January 21 to March 6, 2022
the plumb
1655 Dufferin St.
In person
The idea of turning garbage into gold is as old as alchemy and artists and designers have always been at the forefront of these explorations. Creative practice has the capacity to shift our expectations of the nature of materials. This exhibition will feature the reconfiguration of everyday things.
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Pachinko Games
Featuring work by:
Jason Lujan, Faculty of Design Professor
January 21 to 30, 2022
Studio Kokoro
58 Mimico Ave.
Window Installation
Professor Jason Lujan presents a window display of two reactivated and reimagined vintage pachinko machines from Japan. These machines have had certain elements replaced with Indigenous visualities and newer materials while also retaining original parts and mechanics; creating contemporary understandings of objects as they have been filtered through time and dis-use. They are tools for understanding and interpreting the processes by which different cultures approach each other as a result of travel and communication.
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Place Making
Featuring work by:
Brian Jiang, BFA 20, Illustration
Enna Kim, BDes 20, Digital Futures
January 21 to 30, 2022
The Gallery at Mason Studio
91 Pelham Ave.
In person
DesignTO Youth is a community engagement program which offers youth access to creative disciplines and professionals, culminating in a public exhibition of their work. Working in partnership with SKETCH Working Arts, this year’s DesignTO Youth program focuses on place making, involving critical reflections on our individual and collective relationships to space.
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Slanted/Enchanted
Featuring work by:
Keillor MacLeod, BDes 18, Industrial Design
January 21 to March 8, 2022
ESP Gallery | Erin Stump Projects
1558 Dupont St.
In person
In the studio designers frequently use ad hoc processes to represent industrial ones. These improvised methods are more interesting than the ones they represent. The purpose of this show is for participants to engage in experimental crafts which may fall outside the traditional canon of their discipline.
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Smartphone Studio Workshop
Featuring work by:
Emily Condie, BFA 21, Drawing and Painting
January 29, 2022
3 to 4 p.m.
Online
Smartphone Studio invites you to explore the process of making art on your phone. Join Toronto-based artist Emily Condie as she guides you through an approach of making digital paintings and process sketches from anywhere, using functions available on any smartphone.
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TORN
Featuring work by:
Olivia Mae Sinclair, MFA 21, Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design
January 21 to March 8, 2022
405 Roncesvalles Ave.
Window Installation
TORN is a self-referential project that discusses personal struggle through material exploration. Using screen-printed linen, trauma-based artist Olivia Mae Sinclair shares intimate images and text about her relationship with herself others.
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VO (A Vaginal Medical Device)
Featuring work by:
Azad Razzagh, MDes 21, Design for Health
January 21 to 30, 2022
Saul's Beauty Shop
904 Dundas St. W.
Window Installation
VO is a female-oriented medical device designed for applying vaginal creams and medications. It prioritizes comfort and ease of use and is sustainable, reusable, eco-friendly and economical.
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What If Parks Were Safe For Everyone?
Featuring work by:
Jennifer Chan, MDes 18, Strategic Foresight and Innovation
Mathura Mahendren, MDes 19, Strategic Foresight and Innovation
January 27, 2022
Artscape Weston Common
34 John St.
Online
This project asks its viewers to consider who parks are designed to be safe for and how they can be made safer for future generations.
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Women that Make, Create and Innovate 2022
Featuring:
Veda Adnani, MDes 20, Digital Futures
Nadine Hare, Faculty of Design Instructor
Renn Scott, Faculty of Design Instructor
January 27, 2022, 12 to 1 p.m.
Online
Daily Goods Design LABS (DGDL) hosts a round table discussion featuring women changing the landscape of design by intersecting it with fashion, science and technology.
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Yue Moon 完滿: Tiger With Wings 如虎添翼
Co-led by Meegan Lim, BFA 21, Illustration
Art assistance by Aysia Tse, BFA third-year, Life Studies
with support from OCAD U’s Centre for Emerging Artists and Designers (CEAD)
January 21 to February 28, 2022
Located beside Dragon City Mall
280 Spadina Ave.
In person, outdoors
In its third iteration, Yue Moon comes to life through a series of hands-on, intergenerational arts workshops that culminate in a public art exhibit of community co-created lanterns. Inspired by the traditional Chinese Palace Lantern design, each panel in the installation showcases an illustration created by a workshop participant. Images of Chinatown’s histories, personal memories and intentions for the new year create an immersive, luminous outdoor experience during Lunar New Year celebrations.
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Shared Terrain
Featuring works by:
Laura Millard, Faculty of Art Associate Professor
Justine Woods, MFA 21, Interdisciplinary Art, Media and Design
January 27 to March 20, 2022
Artport Gallery, Harbourfront Centre
235 Queens Quay West
In person
Shared Terrain is a group exhibition that fosters cultural exchange between the Nordic Region and Canada. This exhibition is structured around exchange and conversation between 10 creatives from distant locations who are collaborating with each other for the first time.
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If you are a member of the OCAD University community, your DesignTO project is not listed above and you would like it added pleased contact sdoherty@ocadu.ca.