About condo BOOM!

Condo Presentation Centres have been cropping up all over Toronto. These centres represent and sell an increasingly popular form of living space. condo BOOM! uses the presentation centre as a point of departure for a community discussion of neighbourhood change and the future of housing and urban living.

The show will bring together artists, architects, planners, community agencies, researchers, residents, and activists engaged in condo developments in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, and Beijing.

Together we’ll critically examine the marketing and development of condominiums and their impacts on neighbourhoods. We’ll explore strategies, challenges and options for inclusive, high-density planning and development. We’ll ask questions like how are condos marketed? What is the role of artists in revitalization projects? How can displacement in changing neighbourhoods be prevented? How can diverse groups work together to address issues around neighbourhood change?

condo BOOM! programming includes workshops, panel discussions, walking tours, theatre, films and Nuit Blanche activities.

Creative public engagement in the planning process.

The exhibit aims to present a variety of perspectives on planning issues in an accessible and interesting format. Planning doesn’t have to be boring or the exclusive domain of trained professionals! Informal or creative practices, such as those used by condo BOOM! exhibitors, are invaluable for education and engagement in planning issues. condo BOOM! wants to bring exciting planning ideas and experiences to you!

We hope to educate the public on planning issues and encourage greater participation in planning processes.

Come with your own questions and ideas!

condo BOOM! exhibitors

From Sept 21st to Sept 30th, a visual exhibition will feature work from local and international artists, architects, educators and community agencies.

Luis Jacob and Amos Latteier will present Pigeon Condo, a luxury condo for pigeons, represented in a scale model, interactive website and audio tour. Pigeon Condo uses urban wildlife to talk about homelessness and housing. The recent conflict with the City over the actual construction of Pigeon Condo on Yonge St. at Lakeshore Blvd. will be discussed.

Chris Hardwicke is an architect from Toronto. He has proposed alternatives for high density, urban living. Farm City is a new kind of architecture that would enable cities to feed themselves. It is a skyscraper for living and farming, developed by Hardwicke, Hon Lu, Vivien Lee and Mark Juhasz. Sprawl or Tall? is an interactive computer generated 3D image of the GTA which lets the participant explore housing form and density.

Mary Porter is a Toronto-based artist. Her work examines the built environment of the city and liminal landscapes. In her series of flipbooks and paintings, she is appropriating ‘artist concept’ images from condominium ads. Depicting buildings not yet constructed, the images serve as a bridge between the planned and complete spaces.

Luke Painter is a Toronto-based artist. His work explores clichés in romantic sentiments and the social construction of space with urban centres. Notions of utopia are represented in Pipe Dreams, consisting of digital animations of sites in Toronto and Montreal that have come under heavy condo development and gentrification. His animation reconstructs the condo sales centre, drawing on historical architecture that once inhabited the space. He positions these planned social projects in a constant state of construction and deconstruction.

Lois Klassen is a Vancouver-based artist. Her work “I want to win a 42” plasma T.V” looks closely at how housing is packaged and sold. It places marketing ploys in an historic context in order to examine changes to the presentation of ‘home’. Her work consists of needlework, based on a recent marketing brochure for home
financing, and movie clips.

Xing Danwen is a Chinese-born, New York based artist. Her photographic series, Urban Fiction, looks at the globalization and homogenization of the urban landscape. Her images of condominiums are photographed from corporate maquettes created to promote real estate developments being planned in China today. Trying to imagine life in such spaces, Xing inserts a cast of characters, all of which she acts out herself, creating both playful and poignant vignettes of social drama.

Lasse Lau is an artist from New York. His project, Luxury Displacement, plays with images and sites used by condo sales centres to explore social constructions and stigmas.

Kenta Kishi is an artist and architect from Japan. His work explores the transformation and interpretation of housing landscapes. Flat Tower Campaign challenges the anonymity of condos by engaging with local residents in explorations and reconstructions of condo shapes and landscapes.

Jon McCurley and The Theatre Centre will be presenting the history of the Theatre Centre and its place in the neighbourhood.

Laura Hatcher, Jessica McKillop and Elsa Fancello are graduate urban planning students based in Toronto. They are exhibiting a cultural map of the city based on the lifestyle marketing of condominiums. Examining the city through the lens of condo marketing reveals an emerging vision of Toronto as a globally competitive city. Their mapping will reveal which stories of the city are celebrated and which are excluded. The work will invite viewers to contemplate their own vision of the city.

Regent Park Focus The aim of the Regent Park Focus darkroom photography program is to give youth participants a strong technical and creative foundation in photography. They will exhibiting their project Regent Park Demolition Photography Project.

Edie Steiner is a Toronto photographer and filmmaker currently pursuing a PhD in Environmental Studies at York University. She lives in the the Bathurst Quay neighbourhood and is involved in a local fight against waterfront developments that, in her words, “impinge upon the health of the local waterfront community and that of the larger metropolitan community.” Edie’s images reflect the changing landscape seen from her home.

Ute Lehrer is a professor at York University and Board member of the Toronto Free Gallery. She has a SSHRC grant to research image production of condominium developments in Toronto.

St. Christopher House and the University of Toronto’s Centre for Urban and Community Studies will present elements of their 5-year participatory research project investigating neighbourhood change, including the impact of condominium developments, in Toronto’s Centre-South neighbourhoods (in which the Theatre Centre is located).

The Centre for Urban Pedagogy in New York will be exhibiting a zine and a film which emerged from a resident-led project investigating gentrification in a neighbourhood in New York.

Euan Hague, Winifred Curran and Harpreet Gill from DePaul University and activists from The Pilsen Alliance are presenting their project Contested Chicago: Pilsen and Gentrification. The project is a result of 2 years of efforts to engage more local residents in planning, development and zoning issues. The project focuses on gentrification and condominium developments as they affect the neighbourhood of Pilsen in Chicago.

condo BOOM! schedule

All events take place at the Theatre Centre located at 1087 Queen West (at Dovercourt) side entrance

OPENING NIGHT
Wine and cheese
Thursday, September 21, 7-9pm

Artist workshop - Led by Kenta Kishi (Tokyo)
An interactive exploration of condo design and marketing. Participants will re-examine the marketing materials as they create thier own vision of condo living.
Saturday, Sept 23, 2-4pm

Walking Tour: Community Involvement in Neighbourhood Change
Led by Active 18, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre
Sunday, September 24, 2-5pm (weather dependent)

Play Reading: Vaclav Havel's Redevelopment or Slum Clearance.
Read by Daniel MacIvor, Camille Stubel, Frank Cox-O’Connell, Teresa Przbylski, Charles Campbell, Adrian Griffin, Dean Gabourie, Jelena Cakic, Paul Fauteaux, Peggy Hlobil-Emmenegger and David Jansen
Monday, September 25, 7-9pm

Artists and Revitalization panel discussion
With Susan Serran (Artscape), Adrian Blackwell (artist/architect), Christina Zeidler (Gladstone Hotel), Ulysses Castellanos (artist) and David Hulchanski (University of Toronto). Moderated by Rebecca Ward
Tuesday, September 26, 7-9pm

Marketing and Development of Condominiums panel discussion
With Bill Hurst (Streetcar Developments Inc), Professor Ute Lehrer (York University), Alex Spiegel, Mrdjan Uzelac, Robin Pope (Brad J Lamb Realtors)
Moderated by Christopher Hume
Thursday, September 28, 7-9pm

Film Night: Film as a tool for community engagement in planning. A co-presentation with Regent Park Film Festival.
Guest Speaker: Chandra Siddan, Regent Park Film Festival.
"Through a Young Lense", youth and high density living "Regent Park TV on the Redevelopment" Regent Park Youth Media provides a synopsis of the first phase of the Regent Park Redevelopment, "The Myths of Regent Park", a creative way of looking at the media's negative portrayl of Regent Park "A Call to Action", follows Toronto Activist Gaetan Heroux, member of OCAP, as he fights for social and economic justice.
Friday, September 29, 7-9pm

NUIT BLANCHE
Late night walking tour: planning by night and marginal spaces of the city.
Saturday, September 30 dusk 'til dawn

All events are pay what you can.