Event Guide: Activate!

Each year our first year Experience Design classes at OCAD — there are over a dozen as each design student must take the class — throw an event called “Activate!” in and around the OCAD campus where they create “experiences” designed to engage the passerby. In the past the event has been exclusively in Butterfield Park, but this year both indoor and outdoor spaces are being used. At it’s core, the Experience Design gets students to think about how people interact with the things/objects/items/atmosphere’s they create and to think not just about about creating that one object, but rather about the experience they create for people. Everything in the world but nature is designed (and there are exceptions there too) so all experience comes through design. It will be fun — also an excuse to check out the OCAD building if you haven’t yet done that.

WHEN: Friday April 3 2:30-4:30

WHERE: OCAD 100 McCaul Street

First year experience design students at the Ontario College of Art and Design have been charged with the task of “Activating” some of the school’s public spaces by creating projects that will engage students and the general public who pass by. Nestled underneath architect Will Alsop’s now-famous “tabletop” building is Butterfield Park, a new and beautiful urban park, but one people don’t always linger in — it’s a space to pass through, not stop and reflect on the place or interact with others. Inside OCAD are similar spaces of brief passage. These include the Auditorium, Main Lobby, Elizabeth and Goulding Lambert Lounge, and the Peter Caldwell/Stephen Mader Passage Way — all easily accessible from OCAD’s main entrance on McCaul or from Butterfield Park.

•    15 minutes of Art Star fame
•    Virtual Haircuts
•    Paparazzi for all
•    Starring contests
•    Jukeworld
•    A journey into Experience
•    Alice in Activate
•    Magical Garden
•    Crikey — Everybody’s a crocodile hunter
•    we arToronto

The school and park are the canvas, and passersby are the subjects. With the recent interest Toronto’s public spaces and new architecture, these student projects represent what happens when young people look at our city’s communal spaces and say, “How can we engage people there?

Image by Martin Stevens.