HUMBER COLLEGE UPDATE

HUMBER GALLERIES

This month at the Humber Lakeshore campus, we’re hoping for change and doubling down on our efforts to protect students, staff and the community. With hard work, perseverance and a little luck, we will come together again soon.

In order to reach our goal of welcoming everyone back to campus, Humber College continues to work within the guidelines and guidance of public health.

We hope that the college’s compliance and careful planning will result in more students on campus this summer and fall.

Most programs will still be run online and oncampus learning will only occur for courses where it is safe and necessary to do so. You’ll notice activity on campus from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week in order to meet physical distancing and class size caps.

Something that won’t change is Humber’s commitment to offering a variety of ways for people to get involved via the Internet, geared towards both students and the community.

This month, the Lakeshore Grounds Interpretive Centre launches a unique and powerful exhibit called “The Aesthetics of Mental Health.”

I mentioned in our January update that the Centre was seeking artwork for a digital show curated by Samuel McGuire.

The exhibit combines context and ideas from the past, present and future. The red brick buildings that today serve as the Lakeshore campus of Humber College were originally opened in 1890 as the Mimico Branch Asylum. During its operation, the Hospital grounds hosted picturesque gardens that were maintained by the patients as a form of therapy. The Hospital officially closed as the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital in 1979 due to the deinstitutionalization movement.

Artists were challenged to focus on the importance placed on beautifying spaces and present works that look towards the evolving future of therapeutic design.

The works of Alex Da Costa Furtado, Carla Sierra Suarez, Carmina Miana, Rashmeet Kaur and James McDowell will be displayed for three months on the Lakeshore Grounds Interpretive Centre’s website at Lakeshoregrounds.ca.

Humber Galleries is also offering online exhibits and art viewing. In 2019, Humber Galleries started to work more closely with students and creatives at Humber and the “Campus as a Canvas” initiative was born.

The idea was to expand the galleries beyond four walls and integrate the entirety of Humber campuses as display spaces and canvases.

In another, seemingly far-away time before COVID-19, Humber Galleries hosted PopUp-Spaces and championed public art and engagement with sculpture installations.

Now that Humber College and the wider community are working remotely, the initiative has expanded even further with more public art installations coming throughout 2021.

Humber Galleries is also gearing up for the 16th annual installment of Nuit Blanche Toronto. In 2020, Nuit Blanche recognized Humber as a major institution and the college hosted four projects on the Humber Galleries website.

Lakeshore campus was originally supposed to be one of two primary Nuit Blanche locations in Etobicoke. The celebration typically changes locations every two years and 2020 focused on the city’s West end.

The Humber Cultural Hub, though currently under construction at the Lakeshore campus, has the potential to host major future exhibitions like Nuit Blanche once construction is complete and the COVID-19 pandemic allows.

Nuit Blanche is inviting submissions from the Humber community now but has specified that most artworks and installations should be digital, to be viewed on Humber’s own Nuit Blanche website, because of constraints brought on by the outbreak and uncertainty for what October will look like. Arts and culture are a large part of the way we at Humber Lakeshore connect to you, our community. There is a long history of our campus supporting community through outreach and cultural projects. In fact, it’s a key pillar of the institution’s strategic plan.

We continue to develop innovative partnerships and creative initiatives, recognizing the importance of engagement and community togetherness. Stay tuned for more opportunities to get involved and come together.

Until then, I hope to see you out walking along the lakeshore or enjoying the spring sun as we move forward together.

For more information about the Call for Submissions, email info@lakeshoregrounds.ca. To learn more about what’s happening at Humber Lakeshore, visit humber.ca/lakeshorecampus or check out our social media accounts, @HumberLakeshore on Twitter and Instagram

Best wishes,

Derek Stockley

DEREK STOCKLEY

Principal, Lakeshore Campus Senior Dean, Faculty of Social and Community Services Follow on Twitter: @derek_stockley