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CUTMR Panel: Evolution – Design Conversations in a Collaborative City

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Justin heads to Toronto this weekend to participate in Evolution — Design Conversations in a Collaborative City on Sunday, January 27 at 1pm in the Gladstone Ballroom at the Gladstone Hotel. We were there earlier this year for Nuit Blanche, it’s going to be fun to return! Here’s the overview from the curators:

In celebration of Come Up To My Room‘s 10th year, we are asking some big questions about design in Toronto, exploring how far we have come and where we are going.

This panel discussion brings together a diverse group of designers, theorists, critics and writers, this panel will offer a unique look at the intersection between art, design, urban planning and architecture that can and should inform the basis for a collaborative city.

Panelists:
Andrea Carson Barker – Editor & Founder, View on Canadian Art
Christina Zeidler – President, Gladstone Hotel & founding co-curator of CUTMR
Justin A. Langlois – Founder, Broken City Lab
Pamila Matharu – Visual Artist, Arts Educator, and Cultural Producer & founding co-curator of CUTMR
Zahra Ebrahim – Principal & Founder, archiTEXT

Come Up To My Room (CUTMR) is the Gladstone Hotel’s annual alternative design event. CUTMR invites artists and designers to show us what goes on inside their heads. Coming together in dialogue and collaboration, participants are limited only by their imaginations, making CUTMR one of the most exciting shows in Toronto.

As this is an important anniversary for this ever-expanding show, the tenth installment will emphasize the idea that formed the basis for the very first CUTMR — occupying and altering a space in a dramatic, conceptual, or experimental way.

Founding curators Christina Zeidler and Pamila Matharu return this year and are joined by Noa Bronstein and David Dick-Agnew.

 

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Panel Discussion: What is our Urban Imaginary?

On Thursday, Justin heads up the 401 for WHAT IS OUR URBAN IMAGINARY?

Thursday | December 6 | 7 – 9pm at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery

Join the conversation as we consider how building design, urban spaces, and creative interventions in the city shape our collective experiences and imagination. Guest panelists include artist Justin Langlois, co-founder and research director of Broken City Lab; architect and independent curator Scott Sorli, who teaches at the University of Waterloo and is co-founder of Toronto’s street window gallery convenience; and writer Steven Logan, a member of The Visible City Project that seeks to understand the different roles that artists play in imagining and helping to design 21st century cities. The discussion is moderated by KW|AG Executive Director Shirley Madill, an active proponent of art as a key strategy for urban renewal.

The panel features:

Shirley Madill: moderator, executive director of the Kitchener- Waterloo Art Gallery

Scott Sorli: architect, curator and co-founder of Toronto’s street window gallery convenience

Steven Logan: academic, urban researcher and member of The Visible City Project

Justin Langlois: artist, co-founder and research director of Broken City Lab

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Panel Discussion: Intervention: Contemporary Artists in the Urban Space

If you’re in Kitchener on Saturday (or just needed an excuse to check out CAFKA.11), you should consider attending this panel discussion.

Alongside Pedro Reyes and Lucy Howe, I’ll be discussing the installation at CAFKA and BCL’s practice in general in the context of urban interventions.

The details: Saturday, September 24, 2011, 10:30am-12:30pm @ The Museum (10 King Street West, Kitchener)

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Make It Work: Exhibition & Panel Discussion

I’m excited to note that in addition to the current exhibition, Make It Work, on at SoVA Projects Gallery (nee LeBel Gallery) featuring work by Michelle, a new poster installation that I did, and a ton of other incredible local Windsor-Detroit artists, there’s a panel discussion featuring guests from across the country.

If you’re remotely interested in some of the things we talk about here on the blog, you should really make a point of attending the reception and panel discussion on Thursday, February 3rd, starting at 5:30pm.

From the description of the panel discussion:

While the idea of creative economies has become commonplace in large cultural centres, there has been less consideration of the possibilities and challenges of working in economically distressed cities that are at a distance from cultural capitals and the art market.

Research into the trend of shrinking cities in recent years has drawn attention to the question of how to consider cities that are losing population and basic infrastructure. Possible answers to the problems raised by shrinking cities have not been coming from economists or politicians, but from artists, designers and architects.

Discussions will arise around questions such as:

What might locality and local production mean when two cities are located on an international border? What role do artists and grassroots organizations have in redefining local realities? How do ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural realities play out in negotiations of place and identity, and how can these negotiations posit new sorts of regional or global identities? And what might local mean in the Detroit-Windsor region, for example, where some creative practices are focused on audiences at the scale of the neighbourhood or even the block, while others seek audiences far beyond?

The Panel Discussion runs 6:30-9 pm SoVA Projects Gallery University of Windsor Huron Church Road @ College Avenue and features Anthony Kiendl (Director, Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art, Winnipeg, MB) Shauna McCabe (Director, Canadian Textile Museum, Toronto ON; Canada Research Chair, Mt. Alison University, NB) Andrew Herscher (Assistant Professor, Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, and co-founder of The Detroit Unreal Estate Agency) J. Monte Martinez (Creative Director, 555 Arts, Detroit, MI) Justin Langlois (Lecturer, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Windsor; Director Broken City Lab, Windsor, ON)

Moderator: Lee Rodney (Associate Professor, Art History and Visual Culture, University of Windsor; Curator of the Border Bookmobile, Windsor, ON)