Ontario Place

Ontario Place Cinesphere:

The Drowned World
melted and submerged the world,
forcing the migration of a dwindling
and devolving human species into
 ccessible entrance,
A 955 Lake Shore Blvd W During the Biennial, the Cinesphere the Canadian Arctic.
washrooms, ramps, Toronto, ON M6K 3B9 becomes a world within a world,
elevators, parking, and merging film and sound art with Prehistoric sounds; the sonification
seating (Cinesphere) The Drowned World (Cinesphere): scent and changing atmospheric of a dying star; the submarine beats
Every Sat | 11am–4pm conditions. From cosmological of Detroit’s bubble metropolis; the
AODA-compliant building origin stories, to a future in which sacrifice of a muskrat; the love of
Wigwam Chi-Chemung (Marina): civilization is extinct, The Drowned an octopus. Within this brave new

TTC: 121 Fort York-Esplanade 2–5pm on select dates World contrasts deep time with the world, the artificial boundaries
bus decline of global ecologies. of modernity’s civilizations have
Bike Share: Lake Shore Free entry evaporated, and life in all its forms
Blvd W / Ontario Dr (Ontario The project’s title refers to J.G. continues to shift.
Place) and Martin Goodman Ballard’s 1962 archaeopsychic cli-fi
Trail / Ontario Dr novel in which the ice caps have Guest curated by Charles
Stankievech
Parking: Paid
Exhibiting Artists
J.G. Ballard | Julian Charrière | Revital Cohen & Tuur van Balen | Aryo
Danusiri | Drexciya | Cyprien Gaillard | Marguerite Humeau | Aki
Inomata | Ville Kokkonen for COMME des GARÇONS | Clarice Lispector
Alvin Lucier | Jumana Manna | Dark Morph | Pauline Oliveros |
Jean Painlevé | Brandon Poole | Katarzyna Badach & Alfredo Ramos
On May 22, 1971, Ontario Place opened to the public as a theme park Fernández | Lisa Rave | Charles Stankievech | James Tenney
devoted to showcasing the province’s cultural and economic vitality. Nils-Aslak Valkeapää | Apichatpong Weerasethakul | Whatever | The World
Designed by Eberhard Zeidler, the futuristic campus was built across Soundscape Project
an artificial archipelago in Lake Ontario, south of Exhibition Place.
Following the success of Expo 67 in Montreal, where a group of Canadian With the creative and generous contribution of COMME des GARÇONS
experimental filmmakers debuted a new multi-channel film technology, and MVS Proseminar, University of Toronto—John H. Daniels Faculty of
Ontario Place positioned itself as an architectural and technological Architecture, Landscape, and Design.
forerunner by building a geodesic dome to house the world’s first
permanent IMAX theatre. Zeidler’s utopian playground—the Cinesphere
and its interconnected network of floating exhibition Pods—continues
to define the western stretch of Toronto’s waterfront.

After a partial closure of the park in 2012, Ontario Place reopened in 2017
as a public space for recreation, leisure, and cultural programming.

Ontario Place is the site for two different Biennial projects: guest curator
Charles Stankievech’s cosmological program, The Drowned World, at
the Cinesphere, and Wigwam Chi-Chemung, an art installation and
Indigenous interpretive learning centre by artist, poet, and teacher Elder
Duke Redbird at the Marina.

This Biennial site was made possible through a partnership with

Ontario Place Corporation.

The Cinesphere at Ontario Place. Courtesy Ontario Place Corporation.

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