TORONTO – Now in its 12th year, the Winter Stations public art exhibition and bringing some colour to what can only be described as a white, cold Canadian winter.
This year’s theme Mirage, invited artists and designers from around the world to submit proposals for installations that play with the boundary of what is seen and what is real in the age of AI, and explore public art as infrastructure, explains a release.
Three winning designs were selected from Canada, the U.S. and Germany–Ukraine out of 300 submissions worldwide, alongside two installations by local universities.
Since 2015, Winter Stations offers the winners full materials, fabrication labour and a $2,000 honorarium to support what is often the winners’ first public art commission.
The competition is made possible because of sponsors such as RAW Design, kg&a, Northcrest Developments, the City of Toronto, Mechanical Contractors Association of Ontario, Ontario Association of Architects, MicroPro Sienna, Feeley Group, Sali Tabacchi Brand & Design and Meevo Digital.
This year’s exhibition on Woodbine Beach launched on Family Day and will be on display until March 30.
Here are your winners:
CHIMERA by Denys Horodnyak (Ukraine) & Enzo Zak Lux (Germany)
Horodnyak and Lux share a Berlin-based creative practice. Horodnyak is a young architect whose professional experience ranges between the fields of architectural and installation design, as well as spatial research and urban planning.
Lux works as a multidisciplinary architectural designer.
Their art installation was made in partnership with the Mechanical Contractors Association of Ontario.
Fabrication was led by Courtney Chard, a pipe welder with MultiTech Trades Corp and member of UA Local 46. She is also a metal artist, fabricating unique designs out of her shop in Georgetown, Ont.
Embrace – Will Cuthbert (Canada)
Cuthbert is an art director and 3D artist currently based in Saskatoon, Sask., having been a lifelong Toronto east-ender. He’s currently the art director at Wealthsimple.
Cuthbert previously won Winter Stations in 2022 for The Hive, in collaboration with Kathleen Dogantzis.
His art installation was made in partnership with Northcrest Developments and their director of programming and placemaking Alana Mercury.
“Will’s art embodies the playful and uplifting warm embrace that people crave during the winter months,” says Mercury. “We were delighted to premiere his piece at YZD, as part of our annual Hangar Skate, and to see thousands of people experience the optical illusion in motion as they skated around the colourful hands.”
SPECULARIA – TORNADO SOUP: Andrew Clark (USA)
Clark is a Portland, Maine-based interdisciplinary designer, who creates site-specific interventions under the name TORNADO SOUP.
His art installation is being fabricated with MicroPro Sienna treated lumber, a sponsor for the sixth straight year.
“This showcases our wood in a unique way, and the elements provide the perfect showcase for its durability,” says Jana Proctor, marketing manager, timber specialties.
University Installations
Crest – University of Waterloo: Clay te Bokkel, Isabella Ieraci, Matthew Lam, Sasha Rao, Simon Huang, Oskar Peng, David Shen (Canada)
The students at the University of Waterloo designed this installation to resemble, from afar, a mere pile of driftwood washed up on the beach. As one approaches, the geometry of the wave gradually reveals itself, the release explains. The waffled plywood form acts as an illusion where individual pieces appear and disappear with different directions of arrival.
Glaciate – Toronto Metropolitan University, Department of Architectural Science (Canada), in collaboration with Ming Chuan University, School of Design (Taiwan): Finn Ferrall, Nicholas Kisil, Marko Sikic, and Vincent Hui
Students and faculty supervisors at Toronto Metropolitan University, in collaboration with Ming Chuan University, designed Glaciate as a corridor of vertical polycarbonate panels, filled with water from the lake nearby, creating a set of ice lenses.
As the lake water freezes and thaws, the panels cycle through phases of transparency, translucency and full opacity.
“From outside, a red lifeguard stand is never wholly visible or wholly concealed,” the release notes. “It appears through fragments, outlines, and momentary flashes of red. From within, the surrounding beach appears a mirage.”
