Co-curated by Suzanne Carte and Jasmine Mander, the “living” series opened its doors in 2023 with the Living Library, a year-long initiative with rotating and overlapping artists’ and authors’ projects, which provided free and equitable access to events, a makerspace, books, and room to sprawl. Like a library, it encouraged the exchange of a broad range of human knowledge, experience, traditions, and ideas in a welcoming and supportive environment. It promoted the sharing of resources and stories through resting, writing, reading, listening, and looking.    

In 2024 the library gave way to a Living Lab, where artist José Luis Torres designed an architectural platform The place as an object and the object as a place for spontaneous exploration, creation, and exhibition.   

José used provisional materials, and second-hand goods every day to build portals for future actions and sharing – filling the Gallery with colourful structures lined with mirrors to create a kaleidoscope connecting people to the space and objects. The Living Lab was reminiscent of a cabinet of curiosities, defying the conventional encyclopedic approach of categorical boundaries and linear narratives. The place as an object and the object as a place revealed the unknown and unreadable stories of the objects’ overlapping histories, ideas, and meanings. There was no singular narrator; instead, the artists and contributors took center stage.  

Investing in the people we have learned from; we are turning the programming reigns over to the community groups and members who invested time and energy in our living spaces. This year we combined feedback received from the activities in the first exhibition and the audience development in the second to create a final structure for a Living Room, an ongoing community hub in the gallery. The goal of this inclusive programming space is to be a polyphonic centre run by and for community organizations and artists invested in critical dialogue about our different pasts and near futures. It is a space where they are the content drivers and learners. 

Living Room is designed by the architecture collective SHEEEP. Led by architect Reza Nik, this fluid, social space is ideal for co-authored workshops and discussions. It is an informal space for gathering with an emphasis on flexibility and adaptability. Multiple modular units such as tables, seats, containers, curtains, and a cart are available for hosts, participants, and guests alike to shape and form the room to optimize their needs to relax, make, and learn together. 

The Living Room is part of the AGB’s special community-arts project series geared to stimulate more opportunities for artists and audiences across the Greater Halton/Hamilton district. The open invitation for activations is dedicated to creating equitable and open processes for artists, makers, and collectives to respond to social, political, and cultural issues in new and unconventional ways. 

SHEEEP is a Toronto-based experimental art and architecture studio primarily working within community, education, activism, culture, public art, and architecture. They collaborate with local experts, craftspeople, makers, and artists which results in a humbling learning experience and experiment. They navigate boundaries between many disciplines and come fully equipped with a wide range of technical and communication skill sets. They are interested in projects that are human-focused, and public in nature. SHEEEP enjoys interventions that deal with existing conditions and value the resources that are poured into infrastructure and buildings, by working with what exists as much as possible. @sheeep.studio 

The Art Gallery of Burlington is supported by the City of Burlington, Ontario Arts Council, and Ontario Trillium Foundation. The AGB’s learning programming has been sponsored by The Burlington Foundation and the incite Foundation for the Arts.