To kick off the second season of SHEEEP Radio’s EX•PER•I•MENT•ER•S, join DesignTO for an open discussion with two mid-career and two emerging designers as they reflect on the realities of their design practices within and outside of architecture.

EX•PER•I•MENT•ER•S by SHEEEP Radio is a Q+A style monthly Instagram Live series featuring conversations with thinkers, doers and makers reflecting on their career paths. Hosted by artist and architect Reza Nik, each session is structured by the same six questions. For the DesignTO Festival, this will be SHEEEP Radio’s first in-person discussion. Topics will reflect and expand on past conversations, such as realizing personal aspirations while navigating the binding environment of the industry, embracing change, and adapting to explore new pathways.

Speakers

SHEEEP is an experimental art and architecture studio based in Toronto directed by Reza Nik. The studio primarily works within community, education, activism, culture, public art and architecture.

adé abegunde is a Nigerian producer and designer, based in Toronto. A recent graduate of OCAD University, she is one of the co-founders of local·global, a creative studio dedicated to documenting and archiving African stories from around the world. In addition to her role as a Programs Coordinator at DesignTO, adé also collaborates with DADA Magazine, New Currency and Camel Café.

Lara Hassani is an artist and architectural designer in Toronto. She is half of Studio Wombling, a practice focused on working with what is left behind: abandoned buildings, empty street corners, and garbage dumps. Projects may or may not appear to be “architecture” — they are organizational models, community events, performances, or public art, and take place over years, rather than months — but they are always the result of asking questions about where we are and engaging with what it means to be “from here,” in this moment.

Michael Lee Poy is an Afro-Caribbean artist-activist and architect from Montreal with Trinidad and Tobago heritage. His practice and interests are centered on post-colonial Caribbean design and fabrication in the festival arts – specifically Carnival. A graduate of Pratt Institute of Technology in architecture (B.Arch) and the Yale Graduate School of Architecture in Environmental Design (MED), Michael has been incubating the Moko Jumbie Mas Camp workshops for all ages since 2015 in multiple cities. The masquerade (mas) camps are designed and implemented as socially conscious design/build and fabrication/studio/maker lab workshops, while his architectural portfolio includes two buildings at the University of the West Indies – St. Augustine Campus and numerous commercial interiors throughout Trinidad. Michael is currently co-conspiring with Natalie Wood and the Blue Devil Posse and teaching at OCAD University.

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The venue is located behind 178 Ossington Avenue, accessed by Foxley Place laneway.

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A certificate for 1 hour of OAA ConEd will be issued to registered attendees who request it with their RSVP for the event and attend.

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‘SHEEEP Radio: DesignTO Festival Edition’ is organized by DesignTO in partnership with SHEEEP, and supported by the Government of Ontario. Venue provided by HomeCourt.

DesignTO is a non-profit arts organization that brings people together to design a better future, one that is more sustainable, just, and joyful. We curate exhibitions, presentations and educational programming to increase the public’s knowledge and appreciation of design.