2024 DesignTO Exhibition
at Stantec Window Gallery
Call for Artists
Details
RECIPIENTS
We're excited to announce collaborators Omar Tarek Zayed and Lin Juan Dai as the recipients of the DesignTO Exhibition at Stantec Window Gallery Career Launcher!
Omar and Lin's project, Tribute, will be on display for the 2024 DesignTO Festival.
Tribute
Tribute is a large-scale textile installation that investigates Toronto’s lost river networks. Informed by data collected from the Lost Rivers Toronto organization and ArcGIS data, we are rethinking how cartography is made and represented, employing batik as a technical means of subverting the way in which land is understood and documented.
Batik can be characterized as a surface design method where hot, liquid wax is applied onto a fabric as a resist to silk dyes. Batik, in this case, produces little to no defined lines, leaving room for uncontrolled material expressions that mirror the movement of water. As a result, our multi-layered composition illustrates the maps of Toronto’s existing, lost, and imagined waterways.
By paying homage to the once vibrant freshwater network that flowed and carved through the city, Tribute seeks to critically examine the artificiality of our city’s landscape while proposing speculative geographic futures in honour of Toronto’s waterways.
Omar Tarek Zayed
Omar is a textile artist and designer currently in his final year in the Material Art and Design program at OCAD U. His practice focuses on cultivating the relationship between traditional textile crafts and contemporary design methodologies, seeking out new and hybridised approaches to textile design. Working through a variety of mediums such as; silkscreen, natural dyeing, weaving, and felting, Omar's work explores themes of material agency through a “making-as-negotiating" approach to his process.
Website: www.omartzayed.format.com
Lin Juan Dai
Lin completed her environmental design program at OCAD U and is presently pursuing a degree in landscape architecture at the University of Toronto. She is interested in the hidden environment that is beyond what is usually visible, and is interested in finding ecological relevance in urban environments.
Website: www.issuu.com/linjdai/docs/binder1
OPPORTUNITY DESCRIPTION
DesignTO, Stantec Window Gallery and the RBC Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers are excited to announce a public window gallery exhibition Career Launcher, providing an exhibition opportunity for one (1) exhibition proposal from current OCAD U students and recent grads to show their work as part of the 2024 DesignTO festival. Artists and designers are invited to submit proposals for existing work to be shown from Dec 21, 2023, to March 20, 2024. The selected artist/s and/or designer/s will receive a fee of $1000 and a production support budget of $200.
DesignTO is a non-profit arts organization that curates exhibitions, presentations and educational programming to increase the public’s knowledge and appreciation of design and its role in creating a sustainable, just and joyful world. DesignTO is best known for the DesignTO Festival, Canada’s leading and largest annual design festival that celebrates design as a multidisciplinary form of creative thinking and making, with 100+ free exhibitions and events forming Toronto’s design week every January.
The Stantec Window Gallery is located in Toronto’s historic Garment District at the corner of Spadina Avenue and Wellington Street West, in the former home of the McGregor Sock Factory. In an effort to ‘give back’ to the community – economically, environmentally and culturally, a part of the Stantec office retrofit, the original retail entrance to the McGregor Sock Factory was reconceived as a contemporary art gallery to be open and experienced by all: pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, streetcar riders, and skateboarders, free of charge. Installations rotate on a quarterly basis, at solstice and equinox. Past projects can be viewed on Stantec’s Instagram page.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
- Full contact information (Name, phone, and email)
- Creative CV
- Website and/or Social Media handle
- A title for the exhibition and a written statement describing the project. Include technical details such as how the work would be installed and experienced by viewers as a window gallery. (400 words max)
- A brief statement/bio that contextualizes your practice (150 words max)
- 3 - 5 images or video links of the proposed artwork and a corresponding list for the support images including: artist(s) name, title, year, medium, size, duration (for time-based work). A mock-up concept image showing the proposed work in the window is highly encouraged.
- Artists are welcome to submit work that will be reconfigured for a site-specific display at Stantec Window Gallery as long as the submission will closely resemble the actual finished work.
*If submitting as a group, applicants can submit the above materials for each individual group member, or as the group
KEY DATE
- Installation: December 18-20, 2023 (if this timing conflicts with exams or holiday travel, there is the option to install earlier in December or the first week of January)
- Exhibition: December 21, 2023 - March 20, 2024
- DesignTO Festival: January 19-28, 2024
- Deinstallation: March 21-22, 2024
APPLICATION SUPPORT
The OCAD U RBC CEAD is committed to promoting substantive equality for equity-seeking groups that are under-represented in the creative sector. We encourage applications from first-time applicants to the program and graduates of equity-seeking communities including racialized and Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, and persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities / expressions. Applicants are welcome to advise the CEAD of any accommodations needed to ensure you have access to a fair and equitable process.
Applicants who need assistance with their submissions are invited to connect with the RBC CEAD for Advising support. Click here to learn more about how to book an advising appointment.
PARTNER
DesignTO Festival
designto.org
Stantec Window Gallery
401 Wellington St W #100, Toronto, ON M5V 1E7
instagram.com/stantecwindowgallery
SITE & PROJECT DETAILS
- Stantec Window Gallery space is unable to accommodate sound projects or multimedia projects that require tv screens or projectors. No noise-generating devices are permitted as part of the installation
- Work can’t be adhered to (attached to) the window wall
- Cutting on the gallery window surfaces is not permitted
- Artists/designers are responsible for installing the work and restoring the Gallery to its former state during deinstallation (eg: patching up walls). An install plan will be discussed with the selected artist/s based on their specific proposal.
- Artists are asked to consider the varying site conditions and changes over 24 hours such as light conditions and glare, lighting requirements, and perspective from the street.
- Click here to see a Gallery plan
QUALIFICATIONS
- Current OCAD U undergraduate and Master's level students, and recent OCAD U grads (2022 or 2023). Collectives and groups are welcome to apply as long as the group consists of eligible OCAD U students/grads.
- ENVR, ENVR:INT, SCIN students and grads are encouraged to apply.
- Priority will be given to applicants who have not previously received a Career
RATE
- $1000 Artist fee ($500 from OCAD U CEAD, $500 from Stantec)
- $200 Production budget
DEADLINE
Tuesday, October 10, 2023 at 8:00 AM ET
