Come Up to My Room is grassroots. It’s where ideas are born. It’s where people come to take part. It’s accessible. It allows art and design to collide, unite, melt, disagree, catch a cold, get better, hold a grudge, spread a rumour, take risks, fight and make up.
What differentiates the artists and designers who show at CUTMR each year is their willingness to take risks, to push their ideas, to evoke meaning not just function. They’ve been working for months. They will transform all four floors of the hotel with their site-specific installations that challenge the ideas of art and design.
All year the excitement has been building. Designers have been revealing their projects to us. Layer by layer. Room by room. This curatorial process is ephemeral, gaining shape only as we move closer to the event. We want it like that. We ask for it like that because we need this experience to be a surprise. We still don’t know what it will look like, what direction everyone took—and we won’t know until the doors open..
COME UP TO MY ROOM 2016
Thirteen…an unlucky number for some, but not for Come Up To My Room (CUTMR). This year’s event, the thirteenth edition, once again showcases the work of new and established artists, designers and collectives from Canada and the US. CUTMR encourages spatial exploration that engages our senses, our memories and our perceptions of reality. Framed within the backdrop of the historic Gladstone Hotel, CUTMR invites participants to inhabit three floors with site-specific, immersive installations that stimulate the imagination and encourage discussion and dialogue between contributors and visitors alike.
Coming from the fields of architecture and exhibition design, this year’s curators, Jana Macalik and Nuria Montblanch have reengaged with the heritage of CUTMR, focusing on the spatial sensory experiences and design as the medium. The designers have been encouraged to identify discursive opportunities, altering perceptions of space and place. The inclusion of designers’ own identities within the experience of the exhibition affects narratives and is reflected in their use of interactive and tactile media. Thus, a space of discourse is created where multiple dialogues can begin to take place – between the hotel, the spaces and the people within.
