Ontario Place, located on the shore of Lake Ontario just south of Downtown Toronto, used to be a theme park. From 1971-2011, it was an entertainment complex operating mostly during the summer months. What remains now are the abandoned park grounds and eerie relics from what used to be one of the liveliest amusement parks in Southern Ontario.
In/Future is a festival presented by Art Spin in partnership with Small World Music, spanning over the course of ten days, from September 15 to 25. The performances were different every night, but always included site-specific art projects, musical performances, film screenings, and workshops. The site’s sprawling character allowed a variety of installations to be shown at once.
We arrived around 6PM on the second Thursday of the Festival. Due to its remote location, the venue was initially difficult to find. Along with a few other people, we wandered into an exceedingly large industrial complex, unaware of what to expect. The park was strangely barren, as though we had walked into an after-hour music festival grounds. The atmosphere was still and quiet except for the echoes of shoegaze-y music playing in the distance. The volunteers issued us a map upon entry, but it was difficult to follow and provided us with little information. We noticed a man on a swan-shaped paddleboat, playing the trumpet in the dark, and we felt like we had walked into an episode of Twin Peaks.
Things got even weirder once we began to explore the exhibits. Left to our own devices in terms of navigation, we somehow ended up at the “Silos.” These were a series of independent structures, each with their own art installations. They were seemingly disjointed: each room stranger than the next. The first thing we came across was decapitated plastic horse statues and waxy farmer mannequins. Other notable pieces included plastic icebergs in a room called “Ice,” an unsettling audio-track of a young girl singing and smashing glass, and an extremely bizarre 3-D short film set in the 1800s, among various other oddities. We both felt quite uncomfortable, like we had walked into someone else’s nightmare.
Once we had exited the silos, we made our way across the grounds to the other end of the festival. We came across a series of “sculptures” lit up by spotlights, consisting of a shopping cart, garden tools, mop heads, and a miniature roller coaster model with a stuffed animal climbing on it. That being said, we were particularly drawn to the silver streamer covered shed in the opposite corner. Throughout the entire festival, Ontario Place’s iconic Cinesphere cast a glow that could be seen from even outside the Festival.
As we made our way to the gift shop (which was in partnership with Art Metropole), we found our path was obstructed by what appeared to be a dance class, happening front and center. We were unsure whether this was part of the festival, as a metal band was simultaneously performing on the stage nearby. We found some cute knick-knacks in the store, but overall we left the festival after a couple hours, feeling dissatisfied and confused. Due to a strong lack of evident artistic direction, we remain unclear on the actual objective or theme of the festival. We definitely commend In/Future and its artists on their ambition and innovative use of Ontario Place’s unique characteristics. That being said, the festival was unfocused and we left the venue feeling rather uncomfortable.
