Sheridan team among winners of Winter Stations International Design Competition

An interdisciplinary team of students from Sheridan’s Honours Bachelor of Craft and Design program are among six winners whose work has been selected for a public art installation in The Beaches in Toronto. Winter Stations, now in its fifth year, is an international design competition that aims to celebrate the city’s winter waterfront landscape through art. The exhibit opens on February 18, and will run until April 1.

The theme of this year’s contest was Migration, and called for submissions to incorporate the motif of lifeguard stands. The Sheridan team’s winning design is called Chairavan. “Migration has so many stories and compasses that we decided to distil it down to the really powerful emotion that underlies migration: the coalescing of a group and the powerful impulse that compels them to move forward,” says Jennifer MacDonald, one of the team’s members. Describing the installation, teammate Audrey Assad says “It looks like a travelling group of animals, or a family of humans. We’ve created the chair as its own species and put it on the beach for everyone to see and interpret in their own way.”

Other team members included Matt McIntyre, Curtis Mohrhardt, Mae Garcia and Brendan Boers. “The opportunity for students to participate in an international design competition is a really great learning experience for them,” says Peter Fleming, Head of the Furniture Studio in the Craft and Design program. “It puts their ideas to the test and makes them understand the real challenges they’ll face once they graduate into the field.”

Craft and Design education at Sheridan dates back over 50 years, to the college’s founding in 1967. Today, the Honours Bachelor of Craft and Design offers students the opportunity to specialize in one of five streams: glass, ceramics, textiles, furniture and industrial design, while also building skills in the four other disciplines. Interdisciplinary projects are a feature of the program, bringing students and faculty together across all studios to explore the potential of contemporary art, craft and design.

The Winter Stations exhibit is located at Woodbine Beach in Toronto. Visit the Winter Stations website.

Pictured top right: Sheridan students installing their public art work called Chairavan at Woodbine Beach in Toronto.