Inspired by Toronto’s Brutalist Architecture

Guests are greeted by Shannon Bool's monumental Jacquard tapestry Dead Ringers, with a contemporary photograph of a museum's fashion display of mannequins as its catalyst for inception. The work reveals an array of texture and shapes inspired by Toronto's brutalist architecture upon a deeper look. Dead Ringers represents an intersection of interests and observations in high art & fashion, museum photography, and Toronto's brutalist architecture - all of which share an underlying commonality of industrialization in their foundations. Five mannequin bodies become the site of hyper-constructed space as they are replaced with surfaces of iconic brutalist structures found in Toronto and beyond. The interaction of millions of threads bonds the layers of fetishized consumer settings and static concrete forms. Some examples to be found within the dresses of the mannequins are the Industrial Alliance Building, the former Etobicoke Education Center, The Central Tech School Arts Center, and The University of Toronto's Scarborough Campus. This work is connected by 10,000 different grey scales that are made from 12 bobbins of colour.