Format: Exhibition

Curated by Melanie Egan, the Director of Harbourfront Centre’s Craft & Design Studio, this new jewellery exhibition features 36 hand-selected brooches designed by some of Canada’s most talented contemporary jewellers. The exhibition explores the story and symbolism behind one of jewellery’s most storied pieces and how brooches communicate messages of love, social critique, politics, status […]

“This project is an exchange of artistic ideas between artists, and as a poet, my job is to write a poem that reflects whatever I’m feeling or seeing.”

“I don’t want people to hear my work. I want people to feel the work.”

“Poets have always been philosophers and revolutionaries – they think outside the box, speak truth to power, and speak truth in general.”

For centuries, the island nation of Taiwan has sustained the growing habitats of bamboo, bulrush and banana throughout the country due to its humid, subtropical climate. Woven into Refinement: A Sampling of Contemporary Fibre Works from Taiwan uses the fibre found in these plant species.   This exhibition, in collaboration with four weaving design studios, takes time-honoured techniques […]

Lighting is an essential element of everyday life. Like moths to a flame, we are inherently drawn to it. Lighting is beautiful and functional, technical and sculptural. It can simply reduce darkness, but it can be so much more. Everyday Lighting investigates illumination at the intersection of craft, art, sculpture and design.   Through the Artists-in-Residence […]

Revisiting Sycorax is a sculpted wire figure that emerges from Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, and conjures an errant entrance into a new landscape. She is a supernatural force formed from an accumulation of twists and coils of wire. Tactile and visual forms intertwine race, science and art to craft a resonant hum, a toned and […]

Central to the Craft & Design Studio’s ethos is a commitment to broaden the dialogue around contemporary craft and design practice. For our artists and designers, method and meaning are not disparate; connections are made with the past and present and with an eye to the future. Harbourfront Centre Artists-in-Residence explore ideas of technology, identity […]

Future Matters, a group exhibition featuring the work of eight local and international artists and designers, explores themes related to material expression, innovation and environmental sustainability.  Including an eclectic range of works in sculpture, video, photography, installation and textiles, this multidisciplinary exhibition embraces the intersection of both traditional and futuristic practices and materials.   In fact, […]

Presenting in Toronto for the first time, Nigerian-based fashion and documentary photographer Stephen Tayo exhibits work from his two recent photographic series, Headstart made in Accra and Which Lagos You Dey?.  Tayo, who has shot for The New York Times, VICE and Vogue, has been acclaimed internationally for capturing Nigeria’s unconventional and unique street style culture and other cities […]

Visionary multidisciplinary artists Aaron Jones and Tiffany J. Sutton co-present (Screaming)…into the void: a compelling visual arts exhibition that explores themes of Black identity, the complexities of existence and the depth of shared human experience through lens-based media. Using interwoven and multilayered images, photography, collage and portraiture, each artist will present intimate works that offer a narrative […]

Drawing into Threads is a collective of textile artists, designers, embroiderers, researchers and civil society advocates spread between Toronto, Karachi and Islamabad. Each of us have varied expertise, and these drawings and embroideries trace the encounter between our different worlds. All the works presented here are made collectively; no single author or lead exists. Done […]

These illustrations collectively demonstrate and define the essential hopefulness of my work. They are celebrations of diversity and of LGBTQ+ joy, where we envision a bright future; where people can flourish and dream wildly, and be wholly themselves without danger or hate. I have a love of 60’s and 70’s popular culture aesthetics, which spans from the golden age of Bollywood, to Studio 54 disco fever, appearing throughout my work to convey a warm nostalgia amidst […]

Twenty-four photos of costumes worn during a 24-hour performance of 24-Decade History of Popular Music.

For Machine’s recent talk at the 2023 TED conference in Vancouver, he created Mother Nature, a detailed look that straddles the boundaries of costume and set.

Eight wearable sculptures created for Taylor Mac, who wore them in a film of the same name, will be on public view for the first time alongside a loop of the film.

Treasure is a future psyche-sex-adelic synth rock experience with stories about Machine’s mother, their relationship and the legacy she left to him.

Machine Dazzle’s Surreal Retrospective: Bespoke looks for special public events like Pride and Easter parade.

Mini fantasy worlds manifest throughout the vitrines of Harbourfront Centre’s main building, sharing an imaginary landscape of colour and pageantry.

At first glance, the works of Mohammad Tabesh and Jinming Li are quite dissimilar; however, there is a commonality linking them – they both reference the body, albeit in very different ways.    Tabesh’s sculptures are evocative of sound – heard and unheard. There is the implication of voices crying aloud and voices silenced.   Li’s work references architecture and spaces inhabited […]

At first glance, the works of Mohammad Tabesh and Jinming Li are quite dissimilar; however, there is a commonality linking them – they both reference the body, albeit in very different ways.   Tabesh’s sculptures are evocative of sound – heard and unheard. There is the implication of voices crying aloud and voices silenced.  Li’s work references architecture and spaces inhabited […]

Soft Launch for a Hard Fall – This exhibition probes the visceral and cerebral, triumphs and vulnerabilities in human connections. 

In her practice, artist Maggie Groat investigates decolonial ways of being, alternative archiving, sustainable exhibition practices, and the transformative potential of salvaged materials during times of climate emergency. Implementing a collage-based approach, Groat presents newly commissioned artworks across three sites as part of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival—at CONTACT Gallery, on billboards, and outdoors at […]