Journal

Mason Studio is connecting with Interior Designers of Canada and DesignTO at their highly anticipated summer mixer event next Wednesday, July 12 at the Toronto Euro Tile & Stone showroom.

A time to celebrate and connect the worlds of interior design and art, mix and mingle with creatives from both communities.

Don't miss an in-depth conversation with Mason Studio Co-Founder and Executive Director, Ashley Rumsey, and Design Director, Marti Gallucci, who will discuss art, design, and collaboration in practice alongside IDC CEO, Trevor Kruse.

RSVP to secure your spot and learn more: bit.ly/3oMtcA7

Welcome to the Mason Minute - a series celebrating the talented team at Mason Studio. A journal entry and get-to-know moment for the awesome people that contribute to Mason Studio, the design community and beyond. We'll delve into the passion for their practice, creative endeavours, the purpose for what they do, and the core of who they are.

We inaugurate the special series with Mason Studio Project Designer, Paul Lee.

My personal floorplan for design: has been built off my love of art. I have been a passionate arts student since my teens, I grew up filling up and stacking hardcover sketchbooks, creating digital designs, and building maquettes and models with my hands. Through finding a love for built spaces, interior design was the natural next step in my floorplan.

I am passionate about: 3D modelling as a design tool. I believe that using 3D models can not only make understanding the design of a space more accessible, but also gives opportunity to every person to better communicate big ideas.

A design idea that I want to explore further is: new ways to integrate lighting design into the forefront of some upcoming projects. I’m continuously learning and looking to understand new innovations created by lighting designers and how to best integrate them into our spaces.

Design has taught me that: there is value in iteration, and the path taken in the process to create “finished” works and spaces holds value not only for design thinking but also for the DNA of a project, and solidifying the purpose for the design decisions we do make.

I use design: as a tool to create environments and experiences that are simple and purposeful. I believe strong design can better connect all users of a built space, all while creating beautiful experiences.

Design cultivates community and creates a sense of belonging through: listening. I believe listening to your community and reflecting their needs or wants through design really fosters a lasting sense of belonging in a community. It is through this foundation of listening that we can better understand and build for the community we serve, as well as employ opportunities for collaboration as we embark on the journey of the design!

“One can tell by looking at the rug that there are a million different stories written all over it, it’s noisy, and that’s what makes it brilliant," says Mason Studio Project Designer, Nautica Holdip.

We are reflecting on Mason Studio’s amazing team and their contributions. This rug, woven by our own Project Designer, Nautica Holdip, began as a project during our 2033: An Optimistic Future exhibition as part of DesignTO 2023.

The result is a vibrant, community-made rug that is a grounding welcome to Mason Studio’s atrium. It evokes awe and wonder, is built with connection and exploration and inspires us to stay uplifted and curious as we embark on the work we are so passionate about. A daily reminder that carries us through and supports every step of the journey.

“It was such a heart warming and gratifying experience working on this rug. Something I loved about this process was the community had shaped how the rug was going to come together. Normally, when tufting, one projects their design onto the canvas and draws over the projection - almost as if they were colouring in a colouring book – but with yarn,” Nautica says of the process.

“This time around it was entirely left to the community’s imagination. The 75% of the rug that I completed outside of the DesignTO exhibition was shaped from the stories others told with their path of yarn. To see it come together as though it was this canvas of abstract art, knowing that there was energy put in by over 100 people is a beautiful thing and truly priceless.”

Check out more images of the final product here.

More on Nautica’s experience working on the community rug during DesignTO exhibition, 2033: An Optimistic Future
It was such a heart warming and gratifying experience working on this rug. Tufting is something that is quite inaccessible, so giving the opportunity to the community to experiment and experience the world of tufting was amazing to see. Something I loved about this process was the community had shaped how the rug was going to come together. Normally when tufting one projects their design onto the canvas and draws over the projection, almost as if they were colouring in a colouring book – just with yarn. This time around it was entirely left to the community’s imagination. The 75% of the rug that I completed outside of the DesignTO exhibition was shaped from the stories others told with their path of yarn. To see it come together as though it was this canvas of abstract art, knowing that there was energy put in by over 100 people is a beautiful thing and truly priceless. You couldn’t purchase something like this anywhere.

What inspired the design and elements of the rug creation?
The inspiration behind the design was drawn from expression. The intention by providing many colours of yarn with different ply thicknesses was to allow the user to have a choice. For example: ‘If I’m feeling happy I’ll pick up a bold bright colour,’ or ‘if my favourite colour is banana yellow, maybe I will use that.’ it was really to give everyone a choice on how they wanted to express themselves through this experimentation process. One can tell by looking at the rug that there are a million different stories written all over it, it’s noisy, and that’s what makes it brilliant.

What did you learn from the process?
Mason Studio an advocate for having the community apart of everything they do. I thought it was only fitting to propose something that would be new for everyone where we could all collaborate and bond over making something that can serve a purpose in many ways. It was less about making the rug appealing and more about the greater message. I learned how important it is to give equal opportunity to everyone, and lots of freedom. Things like this can open people’s eyes and change perspectives. Who knows, maybe one person who contributed is now taking up rug making as a hobby or career. I really hope those who participated are proud of what they contributed to.

Community is an integral element to the method, process and ethos of Mason Studio. We are honoured to be featured on the cover of the May/June 2023 issue of Canadian Interiors Magazine. The piece captures an in-depth look at our hybrid studio as a case study and active experimental lab to reframe what an interior design office might look and act like: no longer just a place for work, but rather a space for conversation and discourse, a space for inspiration and rejuvenation, and a space to get involved, gather and share knowledge.

Titled Creating Engagement, the feature profiles Mason Studio through a conversation with founding partners, Stanley Sun and Ashley Rumsey. The piece explore why a community-focused approach is the key element in building and designing the workplace of the future, and how a human-centric working space can help foster innovative thinking and experimentation, encourage an exchange of ideas from within and outside the community, and be the place that people want to come to.

"Engagement and collaboration with industry and community members whose vision and mission align can be a powerful instrument for achieving shared goals, creating a more effective force for change, and making a meaningful impact in the world," says Ashley Rumsey and Stanley Sun.

Canadian Interiors delves into Mason Studio's evolution and intentions for the future. Mason Studio houses The Gallery at Mason Studio - a cultural and creative hub for artists - designers, and makers - a community library, fabrication lab, educational and gathering place to create opportunities for emerging talent and established professionals from the design industry and beyond.

Read the feature from pages 41 through 47 here.

Photos by Stacey Brandford, courtesy of Canadian Interiors Magazine.

The Gallery at Mason Studio is thrilled to host Serapis: Firm Like Water, an exhibition part of Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, launching May 12 through June 30. In collaboration with Cooper Cole Gallery and curated by Magdalyn Asimakis, Firm Like Water explores the form of flow in practice of Serapis, an Athens, Greece-based multidisciplinary collective that takes their inspiration from water: oceans and seas, their slipperiness, and their interaction with human-made infrastructures.

Serapis describes their practice as a “multimedia ocean-themed novel,” the signature narrative of the collective embodies an interest in expanding and exceeding boundaries through an interdisciplinary output across art, design, and fashion.

“Serapis’ fascination with water has a myriad of meanings in their collective practice. Found and created images of water, ships, workers, and maritime bric-a-brac are recurring motifs throughout their works, exhibitions, and clothing, seamlessly flowing between disciplines without material boundaries,” adds exhibition curator, Magdalyn Asimakis. “This interdisciplinary practice acts as a meditation on the artificiality of borders and the structures that attempt to interact with the unfixed nature of water.”

Visit the Gallery at Mason Studio located at 91 Pelham Ave. in Toronto, with hours between 10 am - 4 pm, Monday through Saturday, from May 12 - June 30, 2023. Additional details can be found here.

Save the date and join us on July 1 for a closing reception from 2-4 pm at The Gallery – details to follow - connect with Mason Studio on Instagram for updates.

The Gallery at Mason Studio is a cultural and creative hub for artists, designers, and makers by providing space and opportunities for emerging talent and established professionals. Individuals from equity-deserving communities are prioritized in the Gallery to ensure diverse ideas and experiences are expressed through exhibitions, talks, events and programming. Everyone is welcome to the Gallery to experience how culture, business and creativity can come together to make better.

Serapis is a hybrid art, design and fashion collective which creates work inspired by the aura of the oceans and the industries related to the sea. It aims towards an expansion of the boundaries of artistic production and distribution and functions like a multimedia ocean-themed novel. This results in a human centric narrative which takes place inside the universe of the sea but is instilled by an intense spirituality throughout its imagery and references. This artistic production can also be read as a contemporary seascape. Serapis have exhibited at galleries in across Greece, Italy, and Lebanon including Hot Wheels Athens, Seamanship of Lagkada Cultural Space, ARCH Athens, SECCMA Trust, Rodeo Gallery Piraeus, Centro Pecci (Tuscany), and GB Agency (Paris). They also have created the public art projects ‘Untitled’ at Vigla of Pachi in Chios, and ‘Liquid Soul’ through Rodeo Gallery in Piraeus. Their fashion works can be found online.

Website| Instagram

Magdalyn Asimakis is a curator, writer, and researcher based in Toronto. Her practice explores embodied experience in relation to Western display practices and methods of knowing. She is the co-founder of the curatorial collective ma ma, and is currently the Executive Director of Images Festival.

Website | Instagram

Photos courtesy of Serapis.

In support of emerging arts practitioners, Mason Studio has proudly partnered with X in Residence to provide gallery space for their residency program.

In the first collaborative exhibition, The Gallery at Mason Studio had the honour of hosting Kadrah Mensah’s surely, you’re joking, from April 1-30, 2023, created during her time with X in Residence. Working in video, sculpture, and installation, Mensah is interested in normalizing digital bodily manipulation as an act that is both liberatory and alienating.

Curated by Magdalyn Asimakis, a central question for Mensah is, “Who determines personhood?” Her artistic inquiries do not only consider digital body modification as an aspirational act of transformation, but also how these desires relate to socio-political acts of oppression against physical bodies. These ‘social horrors,’ as the artist calls the latter, create a desire to escape the body into liberatory digital spaces where one can create the reality they desire. However, at the other end of the spectrum, this catalyzes in-groups that are founded on exclusion. From this, Mensah asks, “What purpose does the body serve when we trade somatic intelligence for artificial intelligence? What is lost? What is repressed?”

For more information about Kadrah Mensah’s surely you’re joking, visit the X in Residence website here. Image courtesy of the artist and X in Residence, Toronto. Photography by Jessann Reece.

Kadrah Mensah is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist and creative technologist. Her practice is an exploration of technological intimacy as a site of freedom, escape, and identification. By leaning into the frictional paradoxes inherent to survival, she uses humour as a source of relief and resolution to confront mounting absurdity. The internet is her foundational instrument. Kadrah holds a BFA in New Media from Toronto Metropolitan University. She recently completed a residency focused on AI and algorithmic culture with UKAI Projects. Her work has been shown at The Music Gallery, Xpace Cultural Centre, and Whippersnapper Gallery. She currently resides in Toronto.

X in Residence is a residency in Toronto for artists and curators. Providing residents with space, resources, mentorship, and networking opportunities, XiR aims to support emerging arts practitioners by emphasizing artistic process and experimentation. Prioritizing arts practitioners from marginalized communities, XiR aims to remove accessibility boundaries to research and mentorship and foster cross-generational dialogues that nourish Toronto’s art ecology.

This project is curated by Magdalyn Asimakis, a curator, writer, and researcher based in Toronto. Her practice explores embodied experience in relation to Western display practices and methods of knowing. She is the co-founder of the curatorial collective ma ma, and is currently the Executive Director of Images Festival and a PhD candidate at Queen’s University.

The Gallery at Mason Studio is a cultural and creative hub for artists, designers, and makers by providing space and opportunities for emerging talent and established professionals. Individuals from equity-deserving communities are prioritized in the Gallery to ensure diverse ideas and experiences are expressed through exhibitions, talks, events and programming.

Everyone is welcome to the Gallery to experience how culture, business and creativity can come together to make better.

Hours: 10 am to 4 pm, Monday through Friday

91 Pelham Avenue
Toronto, ON M6N 1A5

As part of the DesignTO Festival, we create a place to experience everyday life in an optimistic future. Set in the year 2033, Mason Studio, Goodee, along with various collaborators, co-create a place where the care for people and our planet comes before all else. We collectively empower communities to look at the future with excitement and joy.

Includes a site-specific installation by Mason Studio, a Market Gallery featuring products promoting people, an indoor garden to rejuvenate the mind and body, a café playhouse for kids and adults, a hands-on workshop, a book exchange library, and a workspace for post-secondary students.

Visit the event page to learn more about the experimental project.

Architect and designer, Dom Cheng, takes over The Gallery at Mason Studio this month with his improvisational wall drawing. A graphic representation of plant matter taking over the walls.

Dom wants us to consider what would happen to our everyday environments when we're not here to control nature.

Come by Mason Studio to see his drawings in person. Until September 31, 2022.

Mason Studio is growing, and we want you to be a part of this exciting evolution of our company. We seek motivated, determined and inspired individuals to drive our collective growth. Though we are always looking for people excited about our work to join our team, we currently have a few open positions actively looking to be filled. APPLY NOW

New exhibition and talk at The Gallery at Mason Studio.

During the fall semester of 2021, Mason Studio led a course at The School of Interior Design at Toronto Metropolitan University. The course guided students to recognize the motivations of a community using design as a tool to empower, enrich and contribute. On display are four students’ work from this course.

Join us May 2th for an upcoming event exploring the potential of design to make better in the world. We welcome aspiring and established designers to our experimentation studio to discuss the impact that interior design has on people, and our responsibility as professionals to contribute to social conversations. Together we celebrate the next generation of designers and the potential we have in contributing to a more ethical and responsible future.

Tuesday, May 24th
Mason Studio, 91 Pelham Ave.
Toronto, ON
6:00pm-8:00pm
RSVP info@masonstudio.com