Come Up to My Room (CUTMR) is the Gladstone Hotel’s annual 4-day alternative design exhibition. Each year CUTMR provides artists and designers the opportunity to take risks, to push their ideas, to evoke meaning not just function.

CUTMR 2018 explores how people interact with art and design. Is it a shared experience mediated by an artist or designer? Or is it an individual response triggered by personal experience? Or is it all of the above?

The capacity to understand and share common experiences is not only a privilege but also a social, political, and cultural imperative in contemporary society. As the world becomes smaller and more intimate, the potential for sharing a narrative grows larger, broadening our views of how to exist in the world.

These uncharted spaces can use art and design as the bridge between ourselves and the human condition being explored.

CUTMR 2018 is a platform for artists and designers to challenge themselves and try new things in an unconventional setting. The Gladstone Hotel acts as a safe space to explore difficult content in an experimental context.

For the viewer to fully engage in shared and unique experiences we must employ an open and willing mind, and create a space where our uncertainties and preconceptions can speak to our communal empathy and compassion.  And amid any apprehension, artists and designers signal willingly—this is the time to build new connections and forge new narratives.

2018 Arists:
Lizz Aston, Chelsea Attong, ‘HIATUS’ presented by CAPACITY (Erin McCutcheon, Katherine Morley, Laura McKibbon, Shea Chang, Katrina Tompkins, Kristen Lim Tung, Margaret Pryde, Simone Ferkul, Talia Silva, Lauren Reed), CONCEALED STUDIO (Cheryl Cheng + Mario Sabljak), SISTER CO-RESISTER (featuring Pamila Matharu, Karen Azoulay, Nedda Baba, Yan Wen Chang, Marianne Ibrahim, Zahra Komeylian, Maanii Oakes, Kalpna Patel, Kendra Yee), DESIGN FABRICATION ZONE (Lily Jeon + Naveed Khan + Meghan Maclean), An Dy, Sofia Eleni, Ryerson Artspace presents Mauricio Estrada Camille Jodoin-Eng, Samantha Jones, Sarah Keenlyside + Ryan Mains + Pyramid Attack, Justin de Lima, LONGERNIN COLLECTIVE (Pazit Cahlon + Catherine Mellinger + Nat Janin), Roxanne Peckham, Jordan Shaw, Ashley Snook, Whyishnave Suthagar, Sherley Soraya Wijaya, Gordis Wong

Curated by Jana Macalik + Christophe Jivraj with Lukus Toane

Come Up to My Room was conceived in 2004 by Christina Zeidler and Pamila Matharu as a vehicle for experimentation and interaction within the fields of art and design. Acting as counterpoint to the Interior Design Show (IDS) and giving rise to the more recent Toronto Design Offsite Festival (TO DO), CUTMR has since become a cornerstone of the Toronto alternative design scene.

Over the years, CUTMR has featured the work of hundreds of artists and designers from Canada and abroad, and continuously challenged participants to push their everyday practice by offering a blank canvas upon which to explore new themes and ways of working.