In January, I attended Come up to My Room at The Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. The second, third and fourth floors of the hotel (rooms and hallways) were turned into art installations. The 13th annual event was part of The Toronto Design Offsite Festival and saw 4000 people pass through.
The Gladstone Hotel lives within the historic Victorian walls of Toronto’s oldest continually operating hotel—located in the trendy and eclectic West Queen West neighbourhood. As a reflection of its surroundings, the Gladstone has evolved into a boutique art hotel and creative hub that invites locals and international travellers to collide and collaborate.
The Gladstone’s website provides a description of the event:
Come Up To My Room (CUTMR) 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.
When I got there, the lovely ticket taker pronounced my name correctly on the first try. I was already impressed! There were a lot of people on the day I went, but it was easy to navigate. It was a family friendly event, and many couples were there with kids and strollers in tow. More than once, I saw a child who had wandered away from their parents be mistaken as part of an art installation.
There were many cool installations and if I were to include photos of everything that I liked, you’d be scrolling for quite some time. One of my favourites was this installation by Christine Kim, a Toronto-based artist who works primarily in illustration and cut paper collage. I wish this was my ceiling.
Installation by Christine Kim
I think the star of the event was Life Moves Fast by The Racket Club (Sarah Keenlyside & Joseph Clement), a re-creation of Ferris Bueller’s bedroom. It was the only room with a line up to get in.
Cult classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off was released in 1986, so I was too young to see it on the big screen. I don’t remember exactly when I first saw it, but it must have been in the early 1990’s. I remember enjoying how crafty Ferris was and wondering how much trouble Cameron was going to get into for destroying his dad's Ferrari. The movie made a cultural impact but the set design didn’t seem to attract much attention at the time. It wasn’t nominated for any production design or set decorating awards. 2016 is the 30th anniversary of the movie, so perhaps that’s why there’s so much interest now.
If you missed the installation at The Gladstone, you can catch it again in Chicago May 20-22 for Ferris Fest, and June 3-5 for Niagara Comic Con.
The installation got me thinking about stand out interiors on film and television. I think that because I have a background in interior design, I'm often looking at and looking for details that others might not be. I’ve often remarked that a movie or show wasn’t very good, but a certain interior was great, or that the interior was more memorable than the movie itself.
Are you a fan of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? What interiors on film and television have been memorable to you?
A few of my recent favourites:
Amanda Woods's (Cameron Diaz) 1920’s California home in The Holiday (2006)
Neal Caffrey’s (Matt Bomer) eclectic New York studio apartment on White Collar (2009-2014)
Nathan’s (Oscar Isaac) modernist mansion in Ex-Machina (2015)
Story and photos by Glodeane Brown