Critical Distance is pleased to participate in the 2019 edition of DesignTO Festival as host to Taboo Health's interactive exhibition, DIYing Free, by artist Justin Tyler Tate. This special exhibition is a part of the captivating DesignTO Festival event series, Dying.
Organized by Taboo Health and OCAD University's Design Studio, DIYing Free at Critical Distance is one of three exhibitions in their event series (along with Until the Last Breath and Time Moving in the 2nd Floor Hallway Gallery) that will take place at Artscape Youngplace in conjunction with Design Week, January 18–27 2019.
An exhibition of a do-it-yourself cardboard coffin seeks to turn death into a sustainable enterprise through design, technology, and open source methods, while daring you to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Come on in and stay a while, for this is a unique chance for the living to get cozy with one of life's certainties…death.
In 2008 in the US alone, 1.8 million bodies were buried in coffins that resulted in the approximate disposal of 1,632,932 kilograms of material, not including the energy used in the processing of the materials for those coffins, such as shipping, labor, manufacturing, finishing, et cetera. In this speculative project we ask: Can we promote a process of death which uses design, recycled materials, and technology for a more ecological practice of grieving? We can't stop from dying but we can die smarter—we can D-I-Y.
Gallery hours are Wednesday–Friday, 12–6pm, Saturday–Sunday 11am–5pm, or by appointment through March 31, 2019. Building and gallery are fully accessible and admission is always free.
Justin Tyler Tate's work combines elements of sculpture, installation, media, performance as well as a social art. His practice draws knowledge from various fields and marries them in order to find solutions to contemporary problems. Architecture, carpentry, botany, cooking, electronics, chemistry, new media, and more are all merged under a singular umbrella of artistic production. Tate is a founding member of Error Collective, an organization dedicated to transforming disused spaces for cultural/social exchange through site-specific design and construction with local materials. He has been based in Canada, the United States and currently works internationally.
Taboo Health curates public and interactive art events that explore difficult health topics.
DesignTO, formerly Toronto Design Offsite Festival, is Canada's largest cultural celebration of design with over 100 exhibitions and events forming Toronto's Design Week, January 18-27th, 2019.