The park was split up into five areas: Pavilion Village, the Silos, South Shore, Temple Bell Plaza and the Cinesphere. The entrance, Pavilion Village included an Art Metropole pop-up, two makeshift galleries in the Atom Blaster and Arcade, and the Small World Music Stage where the Small World Music Festival\u2019s fifteenth edition was held. The Temple Bell Plaza and the South Shore areas included a staggering number of lake views, large sculptures, outdoor installations and performances including musical rounds on the iconic swan boat and campfire stories on the beach.<\/p>\n
The Cinesphere was the first permanent IMAX theatre in the world as of 1971 and its shape not only echoed Buckminster Fuller\u2019s dome shaped architectural proposal, it also referenced the USA pavilion at the Montreal Expo. Among the 44 contemporary works screened in the IMAX, footage was shown that had not been viewed since the 70s and 80s, including videos of the building of Expo 67. The fifth section, and the largest portion of contemporary site-specific works took place in the Silos. Sections of the old water rides are occupied by soothing tones or re-framed as picturesque gardens where nature reclaimed the space. Many of the decapitated and dismembered mannequins as well as old water toys are brought back to life as artworks or as visitors to some of the exhibitions including one very awkward horse.<\/p>\n The Silos themselves each contain an installation responding to their original topic of education \u2013 primarily weather based \u2013 including nature sounds, tornadoes, eclipses, ice and fog. Beyond themes of nature, the cylindrical space was perfectly complimentary to Ed Pien\u2019s installation format, and Gareth Lichty\u2019s field tape installation drew attention to the dizzying height of the Silo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There was some overlap between performance, film and music, but every work was either of an appropriate length to engage with or easy to appreciate for its beauty, sass or clear special-response. The installations could be viewed in one long evening, but the benefit of attending multiple days was to catch the works only performed or screened on one day. For me this included a film and vinyl performance duo Zephyr at the Cinesphere. Using 16mm film loops on five projectors, filmmaker Sylvain Chaussee assembled a visual score of pulsing, spinning images, manually shifting, layering and burning the film as he went while vinyl DJ and composer Adrian Gordon provided ambient tones that seemed neither simply to compliment nor inform the film so much as to exist in a synchronized rhythms. This piece of film was a performance as it was not previously planned or rehearsed and some of the materials were altered in the process. Other artists whose works I will certainly look for again include Faye Mullen\u2019s performance works \u2013 who walked in along the water breaker as a fluid silver object \u2013 and Markus Heckmann whose fog machine had me experiencing a nearly atomic level of light.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/IF-Ben-Watt-Meyer-Rubble-Pile-Temple-Bell-Plaza.png\" "\\"IF")
<\/a>Ben Watt-Meyer, Rubble Pile at Temple Bell Plaza<\/p>\n<\/a>Appropriated mannequin at the Silos<\/p>\n<\/a>Ed Pien, The Silos<\/p>\n<\/a>Gareth Lichty, Warp The Silos<\/p>\n<\/a>Faye Mullen, Breaker Point Performance<\/p>\n