On May 10, The Spring Flower Stand returns to Yonge + St. Clair! Purchase a bunch of flowers just in time for Mother’s Day, and you’ll be helping to support the Centennial Infant and Child Centre, with a portion of the proceeds going towards their amazing charitable programs for families.
Visit the stand at 2 St. Clair E between 11am and 6pm on May 10th.
The Spring Flower Stand is hosted by the Yonge + St. Clair BIA, in partnership with Slate Asset Management. Flowers are sourced locally from Yonge + St. Clair BIA merchants.
In celebration of Earth Month, our friends at Slate Asset Management have invited artists Jana Cruder and Mathew LaPenta of Natural Plasticity‘s #TheBottleProject to share their larger-than-life replicas of plastic waste to raise awareness about these important issues.
Currently on display now through May 1, #TheBottleProject team describe their installation as:
“Bringing the impact of consumer and corporate behaviour regarding single-use plastics into clear sight, beckoning the viewer to evaluate their own behavior with plastic consumption. In order to change what is manufactured and marketed, we must first change the individual. To positively affect consumer behaviour we’ve decided to alter the local landscape by installing 20ft to 30ft replicas of plastic bottles, plastic disposable cup sand straws into interior and exterior environments. These larger than life objects, when placed in landscapes unaccustomed to art, grab hold of the viewer and ask them to look inward at their own habits.”
You can find #TheBottleProject in the lobbies at 2 St. Clair W and 55 St. Clair W from now until May 1.
The Yonge + St. Clair BIA has been developing a Streetscape Master Plan to reimagine the streetscape and determine investments in the public realm over the next 5 – 10 years.
The Streetscape Master Plan will provide for a broad vision of new public realm improvements including:
– Sidewalk enhancements
– Paving materials
– Trees and vegetation
– Street furniture (benches, bike racks, etc)
– Public Art
– Gateway features
– Lighting
The draft Streetscape Master Plan concepts can be viewed below, or via this link (PDF).
Have your say! Fill out our feedback form to help us refine and develop our concepts. We’re asking for public feedback on the concepts no later than April 12, 2019.
The Yonge + St. Clair Business Improvement Area (BIA) looking for a passionate, creative Marketing and Events Coordinator who can join our team in a startup-style environment to help our emerging BIA thrive! You will become an integral part of our organization to help us in our efforts to communicate with our members and with the public, and to organize creative events and activations for the community. This is a great opportunity for someone who’s passionate about marketing and looking to begin their career.
Interested applications are invited to submit a cover letter, resume, and portfolio or website link to info@yongestclair.cano later than 5:00pm EST on March 15, 2019.
After 10 days of art and events, the 2019 DesignTO Festival comes to a close. Yonge + St. Clair was the proud home of 12 installations and events, together with a DesignTO tour and ideas forum.
Thank you to all of the businesses that participated, the artists who contributed to the festival, and the organizers of DesignTO for another successful year.
Here’s a summary of the installations and events that came to Yonge + St. Clair for the DesignTO Festival, from January 18 – 27.
2 St. Clair W
Installation: “Morpheus”
Artist: Gensler Toronto
Presented by Slate Asset Management
30 St. Clair W
Installation: “Faux Garden”
Artist: Studio Hi Thanks Bye
Presented by Slate Asset Management
95 St. Clair W Installation: “Sparkle Squish Plush Pond”
Artist: Studio F Minus
Presented by Desjardins
45 St. Clair W Installation: “Dissipate Like a Cloud or Smoke or Wintery Breath”
Artist: Derrick Piens
Presented by Manulife
CNIB Community Hub
1525 Yonge Street Installation: “The Accessibility Experiment: Navigating the World in an Alternative Format”
Artist: CNIB
Presented by CNIB
Mary Be Kitchen
21B St. Clair W Installation: “The Trees Amongst Us”
Artist: Nicola Woods
Presented by Mary Be Kitchen
Delisle Court
1560 Yonge Street Installation: “Pro-Tem”
Artist: Janine Miedzik
Presented by Delisle Court
DesignTO Tours: Exploring Art at Yonge + St. Clair
January 20, 2019
DesignTO Ideas Forum: Watershed to Waterfront
January 24, 2019
The DesignTO Festival (formerly the Toronto Design Offsite Festival) returns to #YongeStClair from January 18 – 27th, 2019. The event features 10 days of art and festival programming anchored by immersive installations designed by local artists, architects, and design firms.
We spoke with Rotem Yaniv, Director of PULP: Reclaimed Materials Art and Design, on how his team of artist have brought recycled materials to life at the Delisle Space (1 Delisle Ave) for PULP: Exhibit + Home.
Can you describe PULP and why you wanted to get involved with DesignTO at Yonge + St. Clair?
PULP: Reclaimed Materials Art and Design is a Toronto based not-for-profit corporation set to encourage community building and environmental awareness. In the fall of 2018, PULP, The Delisle Space, and Yonge + St. Clair began collaborating on PULP : art party and its continuing exhibit during DesignTO. We were very excited to work with a beautiful venue just across the street from a subway station. We were thrilled to be part of the artistic expression happening at Yonge + St. Clair, pieces like Equilibrium and the Tunnel of Glam , and now PULP: Exhibit + Home, in collaboration with At Odds Collective.
Can you describe the installations and how they came about?
All of the installations at PULP : Exhibit + Home are made completely or mostly of reclaimed materials – printed paper, discarded cardboard, old cloths, or reclaimed wood. There are more than ten installations so I’ll only get into a few. We have Ripple Effect by Natalia Bakaeva (creator of Equilibrium) and Xiao Sunny Li which is a hung piece made of dozens of cardboard tubes gathered at architecture offices and printing shops, cut into an interesting doubly curved surface. It is quite interesting to look at the installation from different places as the hollow tubes create optic effects.
Another piece is Sky-scrapper by Daemon K Retren and Hillary Predko which consists of Pre-cut and drilled geometric shapes made of scrap wood are provided for a playful sandbox experience. Guests at the exhibit are encouraged to take existing constructions apart and create their own. Then there is Fated Forest by Alisha Sunderji and Brianna Smrke (A_B Collective). This piece invites participants to sift through old National Geographic magazines and add to a hanging, kaleidoscopic forest of mini-collages. Each floating leaf in the forest will capture different views of the past, present or future of someone’s life or the state of the world. Guests entering The Delisle Space will pass through Ksenija Spasic’s jelly fish made of old tomato cages and printed mylar, followed by paper ropes woven by Mona Dai and Evan Brock and hung above the stairs.
Among other pieces are an 11′ tensegrity structure by Ron Wild and David Brown, a Threaded Vortex made of old cloths by Tamara Navarrete, a Cardboard Cathedra by Jason Bond, Semi-translucent walls of coloured light on wheels by Jazmine Yerbury, a Recycled Quilt by Lynn Mona, Paper Poppers by Nancy Nguyen, and Adhacks by Stephanie Avery (you’ll have to come to The Delisle Space to discover what those are, or read about them on our art page!)
Before and during the exhibit, At Odds Collective will be at the space creating sculptures out of reused materials which represent how we build ourselves up in the present using pieces of our past : a survivor sewing themselves back together after having dissolved into a storm of flowers; a lonely lover made of past love letters; a traveller made into a library of past treasures; a bowing child holding up a new knick knack to be taken by the person viewing the piece, always replaced by another collected piece to lose.The PULP exhibit will slowly get populated with little sculptures engaging with the installations. At Odds Collective is made of Enrique Gaudite, krivvy, Natascha Malta, and Sylvia Thorn.
What do you hope visitors take away from the experience?
Reclaimed materials art or found objects art is different from other forms of art which utilize off the shelf media. An artist working with reclaimed materials cannot create anything they desire, they must translate the existing object into a new form or use and inject it with new meaning. At PULP, we add an additional complication – paper and plastic based materials must remain recycleable at the end of the exhibit and we discourage the use of glue and oil paints or glitter on such materials. I hope guests will entertain these concepts of translation as I believe they are key to the development of sustainable commodities manufacture and reuse. PULP : Exhibit + Home simply shows the value embedded in so many materials Canadian society labels as unwanted.
The DesignTO Festival (formerly the Toronto Design Offsite Festival) returns to #YongeStClair from January 18 – 27th, 2019. The event features 10 days of art and festival programming anchored by immersive installations designed by local artists, architects, and design firms.
We spoke with Nicola Woods, the artist behind “The Trees Amongst Us” at Mary Be’s – 21B St. Clair W, about her unique process and why trees are so important to neighbourhoods.
Portrait of artist Nicola Woods. Photo by Melissa Maltby.
Can you describe your practice and why you wanted to get involved with DesignTO at Yonge + St. Clair?
For several years I have been photographing trees and in particular street trees. In May 2018 as part of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, I exhibited 75 portraits of street trees in the Junction neighbourhood where I live. This exhibit grew from daily walks with my dog where I noticed the street trees that were part of an Adopt-a-Street-Tree programa joint collaboration between LEAF, the City of Toronto, Green 13 and the Junction BIA. And so, a concept grew in my mind to both record and pay homage to this group of trees cared for by various businesses, organizations and volunteers in the Junction. I wanted to honour how the trees knit the neighbourhood together.
When I saw the call for submissions for DesignTO at Yonge + St. Clair, I thought what a great opportunity to discover and highlight another neighbourhood’s trees. I was especially pleased that Mary Be Kitchen offered to host my exhibition because they have a striking maple tree growing beside the restaurant. In the summer and fall the tree’s leaves provide shade to the side of the restaurant and at street level in the winter the bare branches reveal the amazing mural by Phlegm.
Norway Maple, early winter 2018
In addition to the maple tree my exhibition highlights sixteen other trees, mostly the ones planted along Yonge Street.
Why is this installation important in the context of Yonge + St. Clair? What do you hope visitors take away from the experience?
I hope my installation heightens an awareness of the benefits that street trees provide and show how they bring colour and life to the neighbourhood. And I hope it will have the same effect that the trees have on me — that viewers become more mindful of the trees that live amongst us.
Can you describe what the build process looks like for your installation? How did the idea come about, and what did it take to see it come to life?
I started by exploring the neighbourhood and photographing the trees. Yonge and St. Clair has an interesting combination of old and new buildings and the trees mirror this. I found an interesting mix of mature trees (mostly honey locusts) and some new plantings in attractive wooden containers.
Pioneer Elm in container, 2018
Once I finished photographing the next step in my process was to edit my photographs and digitally render them so that the trees are in colour and the surrounding streetscape is in black and white; a technique that results in a digital version of the hand coloured photograph.
To add another vintage element to my work I used metal leaf as a background. I applied the metal leaf to 7-inch wooden circles or rounds. The gold, silver and copper metallic backgrounds shimmer and change according to the light conditions and resemble early photographic processes such as daguerreotypes and tintypes. And then I finished up the pieces by printing my photographs onto transparent film which allows the metal leaf to shine through the image.
Metal leafing process
Adhering print to round process
The final step in the process was installing the framed pieces in Mary Be Kitchen. I consulted with the owners to make sure they were happy with the placement of pieces and after several hours of work I’m happy to say my installation is up and ready for both restaurant patrons and DesignTO festival goers to enjoy.
The DesignTO Festival (formerly the Toronto Design Offsite Festival) returns to #YongeStClair from January 18 – 27th, 2019. The event features 10 days of art and festival programming anchored by immersive installations designed by local artists, architects, and design firms.
Studio F Minus, the visionaries behind the celebrated Tunnel of Glam at Yonge + St. Clair, are returning to the neighbourhood with a brand new sequin-inspired installation for #DesignTO19 entitled ‘Sparkle Squish Plush Pond‘. We sat down with Brad Hindson and Mitchell Chan, principals of the studio, for their thoughts on the community, design, and what it takes to see vision come to life.
Can you describe your firm and why you wanted to get involved with DesignTO at Yonge + St. Clair?
Studio F Minus makes public conversations through art. Our work is often tactile and/or interactive and/or kinetic. We are always excited to insert artworks into spaces that don’t typically have them. We find it reaches a broader audience and are often discovered unexpectedly.
Why is this installation important in the context of Yonge + St. Clair? What do you hope visitors take away from the experience?
We hope that visitors who work in these spaces get to see their place of work differently. Further, we hope that residences of the surrounding area come out and explore buildings that typically thought of as closed off to the public.
Can you describe what the construction process looks like? How did the idea come about, and what will it take to see it come to life?
Reverse sequin fabric is mesmerizing and very underutilized as a material. We first explored it as a medium when we built the 80′ long ‘Tunnel of Glam‘. Here we are studying how it works in a sculpture that undulates and swirls while still allowing it to be touched by the viewer.
From left to right: Mitchell F. Chan, Brad Hindson, principals of Studio F Minus
Sparkle Squish Plush Pond runs from January 18 to 27th, 2019 at 95 St. Clair W in the lobby. An opening reception will be held on January 18 from 7 – 10pm.
The DesignTO Festival (formerly the Toronto Design Offsite Festival) returns to #YongeStClair from January 18 – 27th, 2019. The event features 10 days of art and festival programming anchored by immersive installations designed by local artists, architects, and design firms.
We spoke with Alexandra Lavallée, an architectural designer at superkül here in Toronto for her views on the art coming to Yonge + St. Clair, and for more details about their installation titled “ReflectLive“.
1. Can you describe your firm and why you wanted to get involved with DesignTO at Yonge + St. Clair?
superkül is a Toronto-based architectural studio founded in 2002 and headed by Meg Graham and Andre D’Elia. The firm’s portfolio encompasses a wide array of project types, ranging from residential, commercial and institutional buildings to master planning and feasibility studies. While diverse, all undertaken projects display an immaculate attention to detail and material resolution, regardless of scale, and a profound connection to their built and natural contexts. The practice prioritizes a thorough engagement with all clients and stakeholders, and a belief in long-term sustainability guides the direction of the firm towards creating a brighter future.
This type of festival brings on a high energy project under a relatively short time frame, not to mention that installation projects are really fun! It is an opportunity to explore and expand upon conceptual design ideas, and get our hands dirty. Participating in the DesignTO festival is an obvious choice as Deborah Wang, the artistic director and a founding member of DesignTO, worked at superkül for many years – she recently left to work for the festival full-time.
2. Why the Delisle Parkette?
Last year, superkül designed an installation for the lobby of 40 St. Clair W. This was an interesting location as it made our installation visible to people who wouldn’t generally seek out design installations. However, the installation was mainly targeted towards the building’s users. For 2019’s edition, we really wanted to engage with the Yonge + St. Clair community. Designing an installation for Delisle Parkette means it’s accessible during the evenings and on weekends. Our installation becomes more accessible to people living in the area – passersby, children, dog-walkers, transit-takers.
3. Can you describe what the construction process looks like? How did the idea come about, and what will it take to see it come to life?
Starting an installation, much like starting larger projects, begins with an understanding of the site it is to occupy. We were first inspired by the trees of Delisle Parkette and how delightful it is to amble through this urban forest. We set out to increase its density and extents by introducing reflective “tree-trunks”, adding an element of whimsy and playfulness to the parkette.
Following the concept was the realisation: figuring out how to easily build, transport, install on site. We tested several materials and structural systems by building a number of mock-ups at a park by our office. Budget and constructability constraints necessitated a creative and resourceful approach to the use of materials, and structural systems that support them. For example, we considered using emergency blankets as the reflective film. By trying it out, we discovered that we couldn’t remove the fold marks. We ended up finding reflective film at a gardening store – it’s used to reflect light back onto plants.
Finally, a larger team is recruited to help with the assembly and, after more issues are discovered and resolved, the assembly process is streamlined. The first of our 30 reflective tree trunks must’ve taken two days to assemble, disassemble and reassemble…the last took under an hour!
The design, construction, and execution of this year’s DesignTO installation is a true embodiment of design as an iterative process: to evolve and develop a concept into a realisation, all while adopting a creative, and sometimes unorthodox, approach to achieve the desired outcome.
The superkül ReflectLive team, from left to right : Mo Soroor, Quan Thai, Alexandra Lavallée, Erica Govan, Tristan Roberton (Missing : Andre D’Elia, Janean Bruhn, Candice Gouveia).
ReflectLive runs from January 18 to 27th, 2019 at the Delisle Parkette – 17 Delisle Avenue.
