Industrial Arts
INDUSTRIAL ARTS is a premier platform for experimentation, ideation and production borne from Markham’s industrial legacy. We are creating a community where everything is seen through an artistic lens, a place where creativity, vision, ambition can thrive. We are Markham’s creative heart.
Current and upcoming availability:
- 3,779 and 2,990 square foot industrial units with white walls, high ceilings, light-filled with excellent street exposure. Suitable for office/production with accessory retail
- 3,024 square foot industrial unit with south exposure, high ceilings, receiving door, tenant build to suit. Suitable for cafe, coffee roaster, bakery or similar food and beverage production with food service allowed.
Under construction:
- 750 square foot art studio *subsidized
- 888 square foot art studio *subsidized
- We are pleased to host our current artist-in-residence, Xiaojing Yan.
Please see our website Industrial Arts for inquiries or more information.
Steelcase Art Projects
Steelcase Art Projects is a Not-for-Profit organization whose mandate is to transform the industrial realm, and the Industrial Arts site in particular, through active artistic experimentation including ongoing collaborations, commissions and projects.
Our guiding principles are:
- Engaging people to see and support the creativity within the industrial realm
- Making every aspect of Industrial Arts a laboratory, a place for experimentation
- Attending to the environmental impact of our work
- Collaborating with the surrounding community as much as possible
- Empowering artists however we can
Face/Waste
Throughout fall 2024, Steelcase Art Projects presented Face/Waste, a 31-artist pop up group exhibition curated by Yuluo Wei about the need for us all to collectively face the waste that we produce. It was held inside a semi-demolished industrial unit.
This compelling showcase delves into the multifaceted theme of waste, challenging perceptions and redefining the relationship between humans and the material world.
Waste, regarded as worthless material, is a human-defined and controlled concept. When we designate something as waste and discard it into the trash bin, it undergoes a nullification of its monetary value and its symbolic meaning changes. The symbolism of waste extends beyond its origin and final destination, delving into the deeper relationship between humans, the material world, and the land. This involves the social and ecological imagination, practices, and open narratives associated with waste.
Corn=Life: The Power of Naming
Industrial Arts Sculpture Garden 2024, curated by Yuluo Wei and presented by Steelcase Art Projects, was a tribute to Indigenous peoples’ agricultural and cultural heritage.
A striking white-purple trellis, an homage to the 1613 Two Row Treaty–a foundational agreement between Dutch settlers and Thomas’ Haudenosaunee ancestors–was set among Ron Benner’s garden, a rich tapestry of culturally significant native American plants and corn, including varieties Peruvian Purple Maize, Mandan Bride, Assiniboian Flint, and Iroquoian Rainbow, which grew over several months to embrace the structure and then gently decompose in the autumn. The corn was accompanied by tomatoes, chilli peppers, marigolds, sunflowers and many other plants, creating a rich flora that honoured its Indigenous origins.
Jeff Thomas’ photographs connected deeply with Ron Benner’s garden and served as personal and collective contemplation on the environmental and societal ramifications of broken promises. The Two Row Treaty symbolizes mutual recognition and autonomy. Reflecting this spirit, both artists contributed to the garden with a sense of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence.
This dynamic and contemplative space invited viewers to be part of a living document. We hope it inspired new pathways towards a harmonious coexistence.
Site Unseen
Industrial Arts, in partnership with Steelcase Art Projects, presented Site Unseen, a two- month-long pop up exhibition showcasing the sculptures of Zeke Moores and the photography of Steven Laurie inside a vacant industrial unit. The curation was by Andrea Carson Barker and coordinated by our curator-in-residence Yuluo Wei.
Site Unseen challenges and transforms the viewer’s perception of industrial processes by highlighting the creative potential of often overlooked objects and spaces.
Emphasizing the unconventional viewing of industrial practices and workspace, Site Unseen is designed as a capacious place for inquiry and conversation, particularly with audiences not typically engaged with art. With minimal intervention, this 5,200 square foot warehouse encourages a profound and surprising exploration of labour, space and possibility within the industrial realm.
Excerpted from an exhibition text by Yuluo Wei.
Les petites tours (Steelcase)
Industrial Arts launched our sculpture garden in 2023 with a piece by Quebec artist Nicolas Fleming which began as a collaboration with his young daughter. Presented by SAP.
Crafted from plywood, drywall, stucco, Tremclad paint and other construction materials, artist Nicolas Fleming plays with everyday objects, elevating them onto columns, making them both unreachable and untouchable. This act not only isolates these objects but also frees them, allowing them to exist purely as forms, devoid of their utilitarian roles.
This work of art a nod to childhood exploration and the simple joys of play.
Text by consulting curator Yuluo Wei.
Les petites tours (Steelcase) was the first temporary artwork in our sculpture garden and was on view until spring 2024.
Breath of Origin
Our curator-in-residence, Yuluo Wei, organized this pop-up exhibition in a newly-renovated office unit, featuring work by Vladimir Kanic and Joy Wong made from living algae and Kombucha respectively. Presented by SAP.
What happens when artists derive inspiration from a meal at a Chinese restaurant? Breath of Origin is an immersive dual-artist exhibition that…offer(s) a thought-provoking answer to this question.
The exhibition encourages visitors to explore the common threads that link the innovative works of Wong and Kanic. As you immerse yourself in the evocative installations, consider the ways in which our shared history and the natural world around us shape our understanding of who we were, who we can become, and most importantly, who we are.
Excerpted from an exhibition text by Yuluo Wei.
Sheridan Ideation Session
We collaborated with Project Management students at Sheridan College as part of a Creativity and Innovation class led by Dr. Brandon McFarlane, where Industrial Arts was presented as the client in a two-part ideation session.
Students were first given the opportunity to consider how they would approach an imaginary case study, ask questions of us, the client, and think through the role of arts and culture in creative placemaking.
Part two involved a hands-on session where students built scale models showing various creative possibilities for an approximately 20,000 square foot underused industrial parking lot on our site. Thanks to the students for their enthusiasm!
Five Arrows, Pointing Someway, Somewhere
Industrial Arts commissioned an art performance by Hamilton artist C.Wells in which he used municipal line painting templates to apply commercial road paint by hand onto our industrial parking lot. He chose the symbol of the arrow.
He writes:
And when you’ve lost your power as a weapon, there is nothing left to do but turn into a symbol. And your ancient identity since ancient times, which acquired different meanings based on the culture you were in, becomes a universal lesson today. And you find your way – some way. And you find the notion of here, there and eventually where – somewhere. And as a marking you continue to point to elsewhere. And when you lose your power there seems nothing left to do but turn back into a weapon. And you have no other strategic thought. And you despair.
And then you remember…you have your art.
One Through the Other
Our curator-in-residence Yuluo Wei was invited to curate an exhibition inside one of our units. She facilitated a beautiful, thought provoking show by artist Brandon Poole featuring a video work shot inside another on our our units, presently in use as a floral studio. There was also a rear-projected video, visible at night from the exterior of the building. This was an early SAP project.
Arranged as a series of nested diptychs, One through the Other is a commissioned site-specific video, photo, and sculpture installation in the fashion and lifestyle showroom San Sheng Art Space. One through the Other oscillates from its consideration of San Sheng Art Space to engage the neighbouring floral shop as site of reflection and refraction, pursuing the question of art’s relation to commodity through collocation.
Excerpted from an exhibition text by Kate Whiteway
Welcome to Markham
In order to establish a sense of contemporary visibility on our industrial site, Industrial Arts launched by approaching Montreal artists/designers Simon Petepiece and Mati Contal of New American House.
The brief was to design a suite of modular outdoor furniture using materials from the industrial realm, ideally scrap materials, but presented in such a way that would be noticeable and welcoming for tenants and community members to use and gather.
Never did we imagine such an elegant, sculptural result, achieved using scrap steel and construction netting!
Life Liveth Pop-up
In 2018, we were proud to finance and help to facilitate the production of the launch of a line of silk scarves featuring the explosively coloured designs of Markham-based, Ghanaian artist and designer Yaw Tony under the name Life Liveth. This included the production of a pop-up exhibition at INDUSTRIAL ARTS.
Many of Yaw’s designs reference the Adinkra symbols of the Akan culture in Ghana. These are distinctive shapes that are drawn from traditional West African proverbs and intertwined into a fascinatingly complex visual language.
For more information of Yaw Tony’s line of silk scarves and accessories please visit Life Liveth HERE.
Mentorship Program
Andrea brings her years of expertise as an art critic together with her business acumen to advise and guide selected artists, pro bono, on their careers. The focus is on the business development of each artist’s practice, providing connections and opportunities, support and encouragement.
Activities include:
- Career & financial strategy and support
- Networking and introductions
- Travel to international art fairs
- Support with promotional activities
- Writing revisions for grants, applications etc.
Contact me at andreacarsonbarker@gmail.com to inquire about mentorship opportunities, to join our mailing list as we continue developing our programming or just to introduce yourself!