Four art installations have been erected along Woodbine Beach, injecting a little bit of life into a destination that may not have otherwise been on your radar in the dead of winter.
The annual Winter Stations exhibition has been held since 2014 and was initially conceived as a way to help bring people to the beach in the colder months through the hosting of an international design competition.
This year’s event begins on Family Day and will run through March 30.
The theme is “Beyond the Five Senses.”
Organizers say that designers were asked to “explore how our senses interact and overlap to provide us with a picture of our environment and how we interact with it.”
The winning designs include “Mirage” by Cristina Vega and Pablo Losa Fontangordo, “Kaleidoscope of the Senses” by Charlie Sutherland, “Noodle Feed” by iheartblob and “The Beach's Percussion Ensemble” by Centennial College.
“Mirage” was “designed to react to the movements of the sun and the people,” according to organizers. Depending on where the visitors are positioned, they will see either a red transparent sun setting or a light and bright rising sun laying on the horizon.
“Kaleidoscope of the Senses” makes use of an existing lifeguard chair and aims to bring together a “balanced yet dynamic composition of elements which are both a visual and experiential celebration of the senses and a metaphor of the body in space,” organizers say.
“Noodle Feed,” meanwhile, “goes beyond physical senses and creates a shared augmented reality environment where people can interact in new ways,” including through the use of an app that will let them "leave digital traces of their time at the installation.”
The fourth and final exhibition, “The Beach's Percussion Ensemble,” is made of metal bells of varying shapes and sizes, organizers say. Some of the structure’s prisms can also be made into steel drums that visitors can bang on.
“The elements of the lake’s environment will release the bells’ sound like a wind chime,” a brief description of the exhibit reads.
The annual Winter Stations exhibition is held with the support of the Waterfront BIA.
