EMBASSY CULTURAL HOUSE
  • Home
  • Recent News
  • Community
    • Advisors & Editorial Team
    • Contributors
    • Governor General Laureates
    • In Memoriam
  • Exhibitions
  • Projects
  • Publications
  • Background
    • Past Programming >
      • Exhibitions 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Curators
        • Index of Photographers
        • Index of Visual Artists
      • Film 1983-1990
      • Music 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Musicians
      • Performances 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Performers
    • Embassy Hotel History
  • About

​Michelle Gay

Picture
Michelle Gay is an artist, designer and researcher. She is currently working on a PhD in the Environmental and Urban Change faculty at York University, focusing on Artists as Urban Theorists. She holds an MFA from NSCAD U and a Master of Information Science from University of Toronto. As an urban planning activist, she lobbied for 14+ years affordable live & work-spaces for research & creation; public spaces; and for urban design which is forward thinking and inclusive. She teaches in the Graduate Studies department at OCAD U. She is developing an artist-designed metadata system for a collaborative project called archiveThing (with Barbara Rauch) to design an open access space for artists to share complex artworks.

Artist work - Huts for Future Living
This work grows directly from my experience as an urban planning activist with the local community group Active18 in Toronto’s West Queen West precinct. I spent a decade thinking about: urban planning, city design, communities, participatory design methods of engaging people in wicked problems, artists’ roles in community engagement. Community members worked together to shape this contested neighbourhood. As practicing artist, this research project is a result of years of complex discussions, readings and thinking about these larger issues – turning to making art objects, digital artefacts to continue to ponder these wicked problems.

These new works focus on urban environment, urban planning and speculate on infrastructures or structures for future living. Excess packaging, trash and found materials are collected then transformed into low-fidelity assemblages and models. These speculative structures are meant to become a method of critical making & thinking around the impact of human-choices on our collective futures and a mediation towards our built environments and city infrastructures. The forms play with new infrastructures - sleds for clouds, a movable beehive, a fishing system, biosphere-maker, water filtration systems, rolling forest, etc. 

The original project arc was to simply craft these low-tech, low fidelity models and digitize them. Once digitized, the models, made from found materials, would be recycled. The concept being that the new digital ‘artefacts’ would stand in for the physical models.  At this writing I have tried a few modes of documenting these sculptures (photogrammetry, documentary photography, animation and drawing). All models are still hanging out in my studio – as I have not yet found the perfect method of documenting objects for future viewers.  For more information, please click here.  Gay will be presenting work at the Embassy Cultural House's Hiding in Plain Sight virtual exhibition, October 30th, 2020

Works by Michelle



EDITORIAL TEAM

ONLINE FOUNDER
Tariq Hassan Gordon

COFOUNDERS & CURATORIAL ADVISORS 
 
Jamelie Hassan 
& Ron Benner

ADVISORY CIRCLE
Samer Abdelnour, Marnie Fleming, Wyn Geleynse, Fern Helfand, S F Ho, Lorraine Klaasen, Judith Rodger, Ruth Skinner, Mary Lou Smoke, and Lucas Stenning 

COORDINATING EDITORS
Tariq Hassan Gordon & 
Olivia Mossuto

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Blessy Augustine, Anahí González, Jared Hendricks-Polack, Jessica Irene Joyce, Ira Kazi, 
Shelley Kopp, Jenna Rose Sands, Mireya Seymour, Venus Tsao, Diana Tamblyn, and Michelle Wilson. 

VIRTUAL TOUR
Andreas Buchwaldt

SUBSCRIBE TO THE MAILING LIST
/* real people should not fill this in and expect good things - do not remove this or risk form bot signups */

Intuit Mailchimp


OUR STORY
Artists Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner and jazz musician Eric Stach founded the Embassy Cultural House (1983-1990) located in the restaurant portion of the Embassy Hotel at 732 Dundas Street in East London. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Embassy Cultural House was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and website. 

The Embassy Cultural House gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the London Arts Council through the City of London's Community Arts Investment Program.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

The Embassy Cultural House is thankful for the mentorship program established by Western University's Visual Arts department and the continued support of the students and Faculty of Arts & Humanities.
Picture

Our Partners

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

E M B A S S Y  C U L T U R A L  H O U S E . C A

The Embassy Cultural House (ECH) is located on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak, and Chonnonton peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum and other treaties, colonized as London, Ontario. The ECH strives to create meaningful relationships between the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island and our contributors. The ECH honours the stewardship of the many Indigenous peoples who have resided on these lands since time immemorial.

Copyright © 2025  Embassy Cultural House.
All rights reserved.
Proudly powered by Weebly

  • Home
  • Recent News
  • Community
    • Advisors & Editorial Team
    • Contributors
    • Governor General Laureates
    • In Memoriam
  • Exhibitions
  • Projects
  • Publications
  • Background
    • Past Programming >
      • Exhibitions 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Curators
        • Index of Photographers
        • Index of Visual Artists
      • Film 1983-1990
      • Music 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Musicians
      • Performances 1983-1990 >
        • Index of Performers
    • Embassy Hotel History
  • About