Camping is both locative practice and timeless process.

—Charlie Hailey, Campsite (2008)

A foundational myth of North America is our collective relationship to the expansive, often rugged, and remote national landscapes. From Thoreau’s cabin in the woods, to 19th century cottages offering urbanites respite from the city in the summer, the notion of retreat and the restorative role of immersive landscape experiences has formed part of the North American conscience.

Camping in North America did not develop on a large scale until after World War II, when increased leisure time, car access, and the possibility of camping with motorized vehicles greatly expanded the activity. This growth was served by public and commercial campsites which offered a range of camping experiences.

Modern day camping is the product of multiple, simultaneous evolutions over the past century: legislation that created national parks; the evolution of camping gear which shadowed the advent of new materials and technologies; and transformations in the actual configuration and layout of campsites. Private campgrounds catered to recreational vehicles by offering paved parking areas in picturesque locations. Public camp grounds, often in national or provincial parks offered remote campsites and more accessible car camping. The layout of most campsites embrace a suburban plan, even with cul-de-sacs. A distribution of camping plots are sheltered by trees but within viewing and hearing distance of each other. The car pulling into each lot serves as the first act of setting up camp.

The enduring appeal of camping over the past century is driven by the desire to escape modernity, and a primal interest in the “primitive hut.” The desire for immersive experiences by reducing the envelopes and infrastructures that traditionally separate us from our environment. Yet, we are increasingly far from this experience, embracing a suburban relationship to wilderness. The architect Charlie Hailey identifies camping as a phased process: “We leave home, we arrive at site, we clear an area, we make and then finally break camp before departing.” (Hailey, 2008)

With so much attention placed on gear and material innovation, little attention has been paid to the campsite itself. This project foregrounds the campsite as a design question. Is there a possibility for other forms of collectivity in the remote? The Making Camp series of proposals consider new possibilities of collective camping and the processes they entail. It questions the role of the campsite, the experiences enabled by it, and the environments created by camping infrastructures. The project highlights five possible formats for camping that synchronize environment and spatial order. The designs explore how campers related to each other, how camping rituals are enacted and inform spatial order, and how the campsite interacts with its context.

Making Camp is returning from acclaimed success at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial, which ran from October 3, 2015 until January 3, 2016. The work has been expanded to include new drawings. Free copies of the six custom camping pamphlets will be available on opening night January 20.

Project Team:

Lateral Office: Lola Sheppard, Mason White, and Alex Bodkin with Miriam Alexandroff, Quinn Greer, Sarah Gunawan, Kinan Hewitt, Laurence Holland, Daniela Leon, Karan Manchanda, and Safoura Zahedi.

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture: Thomas Abromaitis, Johnny Bui, Paul Kozak, Deagan McDonald.

Printing support from Creative Silhouettes, Weller Publishing, and Toronto Image Works.

Support:

The project is generously supported by the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

Media:

"Windy Biennial," Architect's Newspaper, September 21, 2015.

"Toronto’s Lateral Office Makes Camp at the Chicago Architecture Biennial," Azure, Erin Donnelly, October 3, 2015.

"10 Highlights from the Chicago Architecture Biennial," Metropolis, Zach Mortice, October 4, 2015.

"Chicago Architecture Biennial plays host to a sprawling exhibition of ideas," The Globe and Mail, Alex Bozikovic, October 23, 2015.

"Lateral Office redesigns the Canadian campsite for the 21st Century," Dezeen, November 13, 2015.

"Review> On Horizons," Architect's Newspaper, Todd Gannon, December 21, 2015.

"What to See at the Chicago Architecture Biennial—and How to See It," Chicago Magazine, Whet Moser, Dec 24, 2015.

Join us for Eyeball — the annual undergraduate Visual Studies exhibition and party — on Friday, December 11. Refreshments and cash bar!

The Daniels Faculty will host an exhibition as part of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI) conference Architecture in Perspective 30. The work of many architectural illustrators chosen for exhibition by jury will be on display. The exhibition will open during the conference on Thursday, October 15 in the Eric Arthur Gallery and will run until Friday, November 13, 2015.

ASAI was founded in 1986 as a professional organization to represent the business and artistic interests of architectural illustrators throughout North America and around the world. ASAI’s principal mandate was and remains the fostering of communication among its members, raising the standards of architectural drawing, and acquainting the broader public with the importance of such drawings as a conceptual and representational tool in architecture. Membership in the organization is not limited to professional illustrators, but is open to architects, designers, teachers, students, corporations, and anyone engaged in the serious pursuit of architectural drawing.

The principal means of achieving the organization’s goals is Architecture in Perspective, an annual international competition, exhibition and catalogue which has included work by many of the most accomplished contemporary architectural illustrators from around the world. Each year approximately sixty pieces are chosen for exhibition by a jury of respected professionals in the fields of architecture, illustration, photography, fine art, or design education. The artwork deemed to be the year’s most outstanding work is accorded the organization’s highest award, The Hugh Ferriss Memorial Prize. By providing not only award recognition, but also a forum for the practitioners of this art form, the American Society of Architectural Illustrators has focused attention on an increasingly diverse, yet refined level of work. With a large international membership, the work of the Society's members has become the touchstone for many of the most eloquent voices and hands in the field. 

Join us for the opening of the exhibition celebrating the the final theses of our fourth year undergraduate students in the visual studies program.

Curated by Liora Belford: Graduate student, Master of Visual Studies (Curatorial)

Opening reception: Friday, March 20, 6-8pm, UTAC (remarks at 7:00pm)
Erratum Musicale Performance: 6pm at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
(Shared Opening Reception with the Master of Visual Studies Studio Program Graduating Exhibition presented at UTAC)

Image Coming Soon #1 re-stages the late American composer John Cage’s groundbreaking composition for a museum, titled museumcircle (1989-1995). Informed by Marcel Duchamp’s first musical work Erratum Musicale (1913), Cage’s work entails the use of chance operations to determine the spatial composition of an array of objects borrowed from over thirty museums in the Greater Toronto area, and an assortment of rocks, plants, books, chess tables and pieces of ephemera.

Image Coming Soon #1 juxtaposes Cage’s historical project with unannounced performances of Duchamp's Erratum Musicale, to allow a contemplation of the two scores, and more specifically, the consequences of Cage’s spatial adaptation of sound composition principles. Performers of Erratum Musicale include Ido Govrin, Martin Arnold, Ryan Driver, Doug Tielli, Christine Duncan, Michael Davidson and Patrick O’Reilly.

Public Programming

• Image Coming Soon #1 includes unannounced performances of Erratum Musicale (1913) by Marcel Duchamp. Performers include Ido Govrin, Martin Arnold, Ryan Driver, Doug Tielli, Christine Duncan, Michael Davidson and Patrick O’Reilly.

• ARTbus Tour: Sunday, March 29, 12:00-5:00 PM. Tour to the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, University of Toronto Art Centre, Art Gallery of Mississauga, and Oakville Galleries. $10 donation. For reservations, contact artbus@oakvillegalleries.com or 905.844.4402, ext. 24 by Friday 27 March, 4:00 PM.

• Show and Tell: Conversation and Panel Discussion - Wednesday, May 6, 5:00 PM.

• 45’ for a Speaker (1954) by John Cage: Performer Martin Arnold - Wednesday, June 3, 7:30 PM.

For more information, visit http://jmbgallery.ca/ExImageComingSoon.html

Other graduating projects include:

You Speak / I Dance, curated by Nam-In Kim at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto Scarborough Campus.

2015 University of Toronto MVS Studio Program Graduating Exhibition at the University of Toronto Art Centre.

Curated by Nam-In Kim: Graduate student, Masters of Visual Studies (Curatorial)

Opening reception: Thursday, April 23, 6-8pm
Opening performance: Bona Park, I Tell What you Believe 1, 6-8pm

You Speak / I Dance is concerned with Homo loquens. Language, as the dominant medium for human communication, presumes the encounter and the interface of different subjectivities. You Speak / I Dance presents works that question the possibilities and the discrepancies of the way in which language functions. Particularly resonating with the situations of education, translation, and instruction, the artists’ works included in this exhibition reveal the way language plays between us and how it locates and dislocates what we believe to be communicated. Witnessing effects of inclusion, exclusion and alienation, this exhibition invites us to sense the tension of expectation and betrayal oscillating in our habitual use of language.

Works by Diane Borsato, Adam David Brown, Brendan Fernandes, Kim Beom, and Bona Park.

For more information, visit http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~dmg/html/exhibitions/upcoming.html

Other upcoming MVS exhibitions include:

Image Coming Soon #1, curated by Liora Belford at the Justina M Barnicke Gallery.

2015 University of Toronto MVS Studio Program Graduating Exhibition at the University of Toronto Art Centre.

The University of Toronto Art Centre is pleased to exhibit the thesis projects of the 2015 Master of Visual Studies graduate students: Roya Akbari, Jesse Boles, Ali El-Darsa, and Claudia Zloteanu.

Opening Reception: Friday, March 20, 6:00 - 8:00 PM at the University of Toronto Art Centre.

Roya Akbari was born in Tehran and has lived in Canada for more than a decade. She is a visual artist and the director of two short films: Dancing Mania (2012) and Only Image Remains (2014). Rooted in documentary as a form, her work creates resonances between visual art and cinema. Her interdisciplinary practice has been presented in both gallery and cinema settings. Recent screenings include Edinburgh International Film Festival in Scotland, Bristol Radical Film Festival in UK, Fribourg International Film Festival in Switzerland, University of California (UCLA) in US, and TIFF Cinematheque in Toronto. As part of her Master’s degree, Akbari received the David Buller Scholarship in Visual Studies Department at the University of Toronto. Other awards include Media President Award for the best video installation at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Jesse Boles is a Toronto based photo artist and educator. Born in Mongolia Ontario, he lived throughout York Region before moving to Toronto in 1997. He studied architecture at the University of Toronto and photography at Ryerson University. His work focuses on traces of human activity on landscapes, juxtaposing the subject matter with stylistic references to the traditions of 19th century landscape painters in large format prints. He is represented by the Edward Day Gallery in Toronto. His most recent work has been shot in and around Berlin. He most recently exhibited at the AGO in the exhibition "Songs of the future".

Ali El-Darsa, Beirut-born, is a Montreal/Toronto-based artist working in video, performance and installation. Stressing electronic media’s crucial part in creating networked, mediated memories and narratives, his recent work examines the notion of selfhood in the global context of present-day society, which involves confronting one’s self not only with temporal, but also with physical, political, affective, and ideological displacement. Recent solo exhibitions and performances include: 25/09/2001–Present at Espace Cercle Carré (Montreal); Entr’acte at Hart House co-presented by SAVAC (Toronto); Standing Still at Darling Foundry (Montreal). Group exhibitions and screenings include: No Place: Queer Geographies at Small Projects Gallery (Norway); Brooklyn Film Festival (New York); We Can’t Compete at University of Lethbridge Art Gallery (Calgary); Lite Side Festival (Amsterdam); (In)formal disclosures at Access Gallery (Vancouver);  Festival International du Cinéma Méditerranéen (Montpellier); Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival (Toronto); Galerie Sans Nom (Moncton); Festival Les Ecrans Documentaires, (Arcueil); III Festival Internacional de Videoarte Camaguey (Cuba); Theatre Centre (Toronto). He recently undertook a fellowship with Beirut-based artist, Akram Zaatari.

Claudia Zloteanu is currently a graduate student in Visual Studies at the University of Toronto and holds a MFA from the University of Fine Arts, Bucharest, Romania. In August 2014 she was an artist in residency at YYZ Artist Outlet, Toronto. Between 2010 and 2012 she was an artist in residency in Rome, Italy. Her work includes sculptures, drawings, and photography. Recent group exhibitions include Default Programming, North York Centre for the Arts, Toronto(2015), Spazi Aperti X, Romanian Academy, Rome (2012), The Dark side of the Soul, Museo Magma, Roccamonfina, Italy (2012), Edgardo Manucci, Arcevia, Italy (2010), and Body, Caminul Artei Gallery, Romania (2009). Zloteanu currently lives in Aurora, Ontario.

For more information, visit http://utac.utoronto.ca/index.php/future-exhibitions/290-2015-universit…

Other upcoming MVS exhibitions include:

You Speak / I Dance, curated by Nam-In Kim at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto Scarborough Campus.

Image Coming Soon #1, curated by Liora Belford at the Justina M Barnicke Gallery.

Cover image courtesy of Ali El-Darsa, Untitled (video still), 2015. Video.

Global Architecture: Brazil 2014 saw graduate students of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design partake in a summer exchange course with Escola da Cidade University in the heart of São Paulo. Organized and taught by Alexander Pilis, the program immersed students in the metropolis — a multi-layer urban condition that is in constant flux and home to a staggering 21 million people. During their month-long stay, students were taken to Rio de Janeiro and were given the opportunity to discover the unique city of Brasilia.

This exhibition showcases their work and observations of these three cities. It includes multimedia "recordings" and final studio projects that addressed São Paulo's Minhocão, a 3.5 kilometer suspended highway that cuts through the city creating distinct urban and social conditions. These projects are but a glimpse into the possibilities that lay in re-thinking urban infrastructure.

The exhibition “Layered Landscapes” showcases select sketches and drawings by celebrated Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, revealing the creative process behind his work. 

Join us for the opening reception on Wednesday, February 4 from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM.