When it’s so cold outside that your life looks like a series of snapshots that alternate between your desk at work, your couch, and a dreary commute between the two, it’s hard to produce like-worthy Instagram material.
But the social media-worthiness doesn’t stop in Toronto just because it has become borderline inhumanely cold to set foot outside.
Here are 10 Toronto arts and culture events that will help your Instagram cause this winter.
Toronto Design Offsite Festival
The Toronto Design Offsite Festival is in full swing January 15 to 21. The photo-worthy festival features 100 free events, exhibitions, and window installations throughout the city. Expect to find everything from an enormous deer piñata and innovative window installations, to an après ski-inspired exhibition that revisits the neon-filled 1980s ski culture.
Interior Design Show (IDS)
The Interior Design Show (IDS) returns to Toronto January 18 to 23, offering no shortage of both innovative design inspiration for your place and Instagram material. Guests can expect hundreds of exhibitors, international speakers, superstar designers, and prime networking opportunities. The event kicks off with an opening night party that’s always a hot ticket.
Ice Breakers
You have another reason to bundle up and head to the waterfront this winter with the Waterfront BIA’s second annual Ice Breakers exhibition. From January 19 to February 25, you’ll find five conversation-starting art installations on Queens Quay between York and Spadina. The pieces – all winners of a competition – reflect the 2018 theme, “constellation,” with each just as social media-worthy as the next.
Night of Ideas
Pull an all-nighter at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto on January 25 for Night of Ideas: To Sleep or Not to Sleep. Night of Ideas is a French-initiated, global, all-night event that takes place in various cities around the world. Inspiring powerful conversations about ideas and change, the event will feature over twenty speakers. Photo ops include things like Jon Sasaki’s exhaustion dance performance Rest, a tour of the Art Museum’s major international exhibition Figures of Sleep, and no shortage of pajama-rocking guests.
Haus Musik: The Classical Alternative
Experience classical music in a whole new, completely unexpected way with the Haus Musik experiential concert series by Tafelmusik. The immersive show – the next of which happens on February 1 at the Great Hall – take classical music out of the traditional concert hall and drops it in a dramatic setting for a one-night, mixed-genre, and multisensory collaboration with DJs, sound designers, dancers, and videographers (perfect Instagram Story material).
Winter Stations Design Competition
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Capture lifeguard stations that have been transformed into works of art this winter at the annual Winter Stations Design Competition, held February 19 to April 1. The public art initiative creates playful, photo-worthy art installations out of otherwise lonely and deserted lifeguard stations on the beach. This year’s theme of RIOT asks artists to push back and act out after a crazy year of chaos and uncertainty (think: things like a “Pussy Hut” inspired by the Women’s March hat).
Yoko Ono: The Riverbed
Get up close and personal with the work of Yoko Ono at The Gardiner Museum. The thought-provoking, three-part installation, entitled The Riverbed, takes place February 22 to June 3. The exhibit is completely interactive and invites visitors to collaborate with the artist and with each other (and, naturally, do document the whole thing via Instagram). It’s designed to foster contemplation of the chaotic times in which we’re living and what we can do to repair things.
The Artist Project
If you’re in the market for some new quality art, a unique date night, or some interesting social media content (or all of the above), hit the Better Living Center for The Artist Project contemporary art fair, returning February 22-25. The event features attention-grabbing works from over 250 top contemporary artists that can be bought directly, in addition to an opening night party filled with the city’s art world elite.
Bloor-Yorkville Icefest
Emerge from hibernation and embrace the Canadian winter and the opportunities it presents when it comes to snapping memorable shots of ice art. The Bloor-Yorkville Icefest returns to beautify the Village of Yorkville Park and the surrounding area with incredible crystal-clear ice sculptures and live ice carving demonstrations on Saturday, February 24 and Sunday, February 25. With a theme of Medieval Times, we can expect it to get interesting (and photo op-filled).
Infinity Mirrors at the AGO
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If you’re looking for Instagram-worthy art, that is exactly what the Art Gallery of Ontario’s (AGO) upcoming programming offers. Yayoi Kusama’s insanely coveted Infinity Mirrors will transform the AGO with its floor-to-ceiling, mirror-lined kaleidoscopic rooms from March 3 to May 27. This immersive exhibit offers ample backdrops for the perfect selfie. The show hits Toronto following sold-out stints in Washington, D.C., Seattle and Los Angeles in the past year.
Are you going to attend any of these Instagram-Worthy events in Toronto this winter?
Featured image: Instagram/ @laurie.a.demarco
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