Winter Stations beckon Torontonians to visit the Beach

The winners of the fifth annual Winter Stations Design Competition will soon be busy constructing their bold and whimsical designs along the eastern shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto’s Beach community.

Four winners were chosen, and each installation will be featured on the site of a lifeguard station to celebrate and enhance Toronto’s winter waterfront landscape. The installations aim to draw people to the lake to interact with installations, the winter landscape and each other. The four winning designs will be joined by two student installations from Sheridan College and Humber College.

Founded by RAW Design, Ferris + Associates, and Curio, the Winter Stations Design Competition was conceived as a way of using design to inspire Torontonians to visit the beach in the winter.

The theme for this year’s Winter Stations is ‘migration’ and artists, architects and designers were asked to explore all facets of the theme, including the complex social issues that surround humanity’s shaping of our global society, the flight of animals and the exchange of ideas.

“It brings our team immense pride that Winter Stations is heading into its fifth year,” said Winter Stations co-founder, Roland Rom Colthoff, of RAW Design. “It’s a testament to the appetite for design in this city, as well as to the efforts of our sponsors who step up each year to fund the exhibition. We wanted this year’s theme to continue exploring global events while bringing design and spectacle to the water’s edge. Winter Stations has always been about bringing joy, warmth and conversation to the long, cold Canadian winter landscape.”

The concept evolved to include sister exhibition, Ice Breakers, featured in our last issue, which was presented by Ports Toronto.

Ice Breakers is now in its third year and runs from Jan. 19 - Feb. 24, along Queen’s Quay in downtown Toronto.

Winter Stations will be running from Feb. 18 until April 1.

The 2019 Winter Stations winners

‘Above the Wall’ by Joshua Carel and Adelle York, Boston, USA

‘Above the Wall’ positions humans, physically and symbolically, above a barrier constructed around the lifeguard stand at Woodbine Beach. In the current global political climate, the idea of a wall as a literal physical boundary between countries is re-emerging as a nationalist tool to prevent migration. This installation contests the wall as a productive assertion of sovereignty. As visitors walk between installations, they are encouraged to ascend the staircase along their walk and engage with others that have approached from the opposite side. This unifying experience can help us overcome the physical thing that is meant to divide us.

‘The Forest of Butterflies’ by Luis Enrique Hernandez, Xalapa, Mexico

‘The Forest of Butterflies’ represents the forests of Michoacan, Mexico, where year-after-year the insect with the longest migration in the world is received, the Monarch Butterfly. The installation represents a bouquet of butterflies that lived in the forests of Michoacan upon receiving the Canadian migrant, where the spectators can play, run, dance, chase and hide from the millions of butterflies that paint the forest with orange tones, during the Mexican winter.

‘Ground2’ by Humber College Toronto, Canada

‘Ground2’ is an experiential journey of migration that beckons the user to participate in the ever-shifting human and environmental landscape. Built with contemporary materials, the temporary, scattered, structures form a new artificial ground mediating between the linear, safe boardwalk and the fluctuating, undefined, boundaries of water. This dispersed plateau reflects on the near future of the world’s dissolving glacial landscapes that will propel an imminent environmental refugee crises. With a natural flow of degradation and designed to reach varying heights, ‘Ground2’ prompts users to assess their reformed surroundings as they walk, climb, and traverse the destabilized path before them.

‘Intuit’ by Sheridan College Mississauga, Canada

‘Intuit’ reimagines the lifeguard tower as a migratory species. The proportions of the original tower have been stretched, shrunk and distorted to create a pleasing array of characters within the species. The placement of the chairs in turn suggests a pattern of migration that is at once familiar and satisfying. Constructed of wood with the concern for the public’s safety uppermost we hope that the viewer will add a playful narrative and offer them the opportunity to engage and rekindle their own memories and stories.

‘Cavalcade’ by John Nguyen, Victor Perez-Amado, Anton Skorishchenko,Abubaker Bajaman, Stephen Seungwon Baik, Toronto, Canada

‘Cavalcade’ is an installation that reflects the collective spirit of human movement and is transversal. Not just in the contemporary political sense of global migration, but in the consensus that the human quest for a better life is one that is timeless and universal. ‘Cavalcade’ depicts people migrating towards something better. The spectator is placed in the midst of this movement as their reflection off a mirror at the centre of the installation reaffirms

Additional Information

• The 2019 Winter Stations jury included Jury-Chair, Mary-Margaret McMahon, Architecture Critic Alex Bozikovic, Designer and Landscape Architect, Emilia Hurd, General Manager, Parks, Forestry and Recreation, Janie Romoff, Artist, Jyhling Lee and CivicAction CEO, Sevaun Palvetzian.

• 2019 Winter Stations sponsors include: Urban Capital, City of Toronto, Ontario Association of Architects, Diamante Developments, Carlyle Communities, Demirov, Bridging Finance, Rockport, Fieldgate Homes, Bousefield, Lifestyle Custom Homes, Studio City and Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.

Related readings

Waterfront Ice Breaker exhibition starts Jan. 19