Proximities of Presence

‘Proximities of Presence’ is a group exhibition featuring works by industrial designer Mehnaz Aydemir; multidisciplinary fashion designer, artist, and researcher Keunsu Cho; interdisciplinary conceptual artist Nina Rastgar; and SSHRC Doctoral Fellow Stephen Severn. All four exhibitors are currently Ph.D Candidates in the Media & Design Innovation program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Through sculpture, sound, and interactive media, the artists explore what it means to belong in a world shaped by memory, technology, and transformation.

The works invite visitors to engage through touch, sound, and reflection. Aydemir’s installation uses eye-tracking technology on digitally-mediated effects through object/human interactions, with a focus on multi-sensory embodiment and subtlety. It argues how perception shapes belonging in our increasingly digitally-mediated lives through multi-sensory embodiment. Keunsu Cho revives worn straw hats to honour the memory of his grandmother, inviting others to contribute gestures of care and remembrance. Nina Rastgar’s sculpture translates reflections on environment and otherness into tangible form, revealing how belonging is shaped by visibility, vulnerability, and the lives of those often unseen yet constantly on display. Stephen Severn’s sound sculpture turns a hand-made plaster vessel into a vibrating speaker, transforming sound into a nonbinary, shared, bodily experience to explore experiences of d/Deaf gain.

Together, the artists reimagine belonging and presence as a living process—something continuously made and remade through connection, difference, and care. Hosted at Moss Park Espresso, a neighbourhood café, the exhibition extends its theme into the space itself: a site of community and relation. Here, sensory encounters unfold, inviting visitors to pause, listen, and consider how belonging is felt, shared, and sustained.