Tornado Pod

Ontario Place, Toronto

Ontario Place is a decommissioned, iconic theme park on Toronto’s waterfront, where a concrete silo once housed an educational display about tornados. Inside that sheltered, reverberant space, my installation explored the need for safety in a chaotic world. Audience members entered a cavernous space in which a large hanging “pod” formed from delicate white gathered fabric sewn onto an aluminum armature emitted the sounds of a child reading from the didactic panels of the original exhibit. Joined by the voice of an adult woman, symbolizing both teacher and mother, the sound track also wove in songs and sounds about wind along with a haunting recitation of Ontario’s historic anthem. This atmospheric, interactive work considered the passage of time, memory, and the unknowable future.