DesignTO is making its return across Toronto to elevate designs for a hopeful future. From January 19-28, the festival will take place at venues around the city. Multidisciplinary artists across mediums will have an opportunity to showcase their best works that reflect contemporary issues, with a focus on sustainability.
To better navigate the festival, attendees will be able to plan their visit through the DesignTO mobile app. With specific DesignTO projects, window installations, events, and exhibition-based projects, there is plenty happening across the city.
SheDoesTheCity has you covered with our guide to the 2024 DesignTO Festival, featuring artists and exhibitions you won’t want to miss!
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Beyond Wada In Bloom
January 19 – 28, Window Installation
This window installation pays homage to Sanzo Wada’s A Dictionary of Colour Combinations. This glimpse into traditional Japanese colour perceptions laid the groundwork for modern theory. This piece will connect history and the psychology of colour, as the artist Shayla Bond embarks on a journey to recreate Wada’s palettes through colour mixing.
Set as a continuation of her colour study series, this installation transforms the Promise Supply windows into a mesmerising nature-themed experience for viewers. We’re excited to see how these colours come together in this brightly lit space. As we make our way through the winter, this will be a warming glimpse into the bright spring season. More info.
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What If I Can Use It?
January 18 – 28, Exhibition
In an ongoing challenge to push traditional boundaries between art and function, this exhibition brings together a half dozen ceramic-based artists. The exhibition will be displayed at the in-studio furniture showroom as co-presented by Vessels + Sticks Ceramic Art Gallery and Ashley Botten Design. Their works are labelled “unusable” as each piece encourages viewers to think critically about the value of art. More info.
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Coffee Culture: Ritual Comforts and Kōhī Coat
January 11 – February 1, Window Installation
In Coffee Culture, her ongoing body of work, Jennifer Coghill creates art with used tea bags, coffee filters, and discarded coffee bags. Questions about the preconceived notions of what is garbage and what is art are further explored through this piece. In choosing Hamers Coffee as a venue, the entirety of the piece comes full circle.
Ritual Comforts is a 3-foot square hanging “quilt” sewn together with coffee filters decorated with cyanotypes images of coffee beans. Kōhī Coat, another creation from Coghill, is made from coffee filters decorated in the same manner. Through this repurposing of materials, Coghill elevates the use of mundane objects as a form of art. This exhibition is a must-see for any coffee enthusiast! It combines the morality of discarded objects with a culture unique to coffee shops. More info.
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Could you take a picture?
January 19 – 28, Exhibition
In a technology-based exhibition, artist Cinzia Campolese questions the interplay between phone cameras and our ever-changing realities. Featuring a series of modified, upcycled LCDs of different brands and models, these screens are programmed to emit full and coloured light without visual content. Attendees can interact and become part of the artwork through participation with cell devices. By challenging the limitations of a camera and how art can be seen through a phone lens, this piece is sure to surprise many viewers. More info.
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And I Know You’ll Never See This
January 19 – 26, Exhibition
For the 2023 DesignTO Festival, Olivia Mae Sinclar presented a multimedia piece which conveys yearning within the confines of relationships. And I Know You’ll Never See This is a continuation of Dread to Dream. In over a year, Sinclair has come to understand how time acts as a healer. Through her works, Sinclair seeks to uncover her wounds and the resilience that defines her. In a journey of growth and healing, this installation strikes a chord with the audience as it calls on those experiencing limerence or grieving experiences and relationships. More info.
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Just Can’t Get It Together
January 19 – 28, Window Installation
Brenda Mabel Reid’s Just Can’t Get It Together is an installation contrasting soft materials alongside real-life construction tools. Reid uses plush objects to explore housing and self-determined spaces with playfulness and humour. As conversations surrounding affordable housing scarcity and the “cost of living” arise, this piece questions how spaces can become paramount.
The title acts as an exasperated statement that derives from those struggling to pay rent or follow through with their housing situation. For those stressed about the realities of increased rent prices, this piece will relay your struggles in a lighthearted manner. More info.
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The Space Between
January 19 – 28, Exhibition
Tania Love’s exhibition the space between presents graphite drawings and subtle paintings from the interplay of light and shadow. These works are further produced with a natural casein-based paint on linen and botanically-based pigments. The sun and moon contrast reflects the perception and experience of human relativity. Love discovers the liminal, fleeting, and abstract rhythms of the awareness these spaces create. More info.
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