The Serenity Experience in Riverside!

I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate with the Riverside BIA in creating this HUGE adaptation of my immersive installation entitled "The Serenity Experience"! For those of you who saw the original version of this installation (either at the One of a Kind Holiday show in 2018, or my solo exhibition at the Artist's Network Gallery in early 2019, or as part of Oma Chiropractic's Love Yourself event in February of 2020), you'll remember that it was contained within a hut roughly 5' wide by 9' long... in this new expanded version, it includes hundreds of strands of thousands of sparkly crystal beads, spanning 127 linear feet of window space along a 450m stretch of Queen St. East in the Riverside neighbourhood of Toronto. There are 10 separate locations, each with a unique piece of the overall installation. 6 of the locations include a portion of the "Serenity Experience" video, projected onto various surfaces. The intent of the project is to bring a sense of increased calm and well-being over the darker months of winter. The artwork explores the question of what triggers our brain to feel calmness and happiness, and suggests ideas as to how we can deliberately harness this to increase our sense of personal well being.

Because of the challenges of experiencing public art safely in the middle of pandemic lockdown, we have created an entirely virtual experience to allow people to access all of the components from their own homes.

We have 3 FREE ticketed online events:

DIY Serenity Workshop - February 20th @2pm EST - more info and register here!

Online Artist Talk - February 27th @2pm EST - register here!

Virtual Mini-Retreat - starting March 13th @2pm EST - more info and register here!

Here are some of the other awesome things to see & do:

- video tours of all of the locations

- an audio track of soothing sounds to listen to

- online clips of the videos being projected in 6 of the locations

- a scavenger hunt: download the Goose Chase app on your smartphone and enter game code GZK46X to complete missions designed to increase your happiness!

- a series of Happiness Tips videos with yours truly and a whole bunch of fun guests (these are originally airing on Instagram Live every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 1pm until March 20, and then uploaded to the website later each of those days)

- a recommended reading list, in case you're interested in diving deeper into the ideas behind all of this

It's a LOT. And all of this is FREE to all of you, and anyone else in the world who wants to empower themselves to feel happier in spite of everything that's going on in the world right now!

A huge thanks to the City of Toronto, and the ArtworxTO initiative, as well as the Riverside BIA, for making all of this possible.