grad shows toronto

The top 8 events to see Toronto's future creative stars

While university students everywhere are gearing up to write exams, art students from some of Toronto's top post-secondary art programs are preparing to showcase their work in the biggest shows of their university careers. This is the chance for professors, students, industry-professionals and the public to check out upcoming young Toronto talent.

Here are 8 graduate art student events to check out in Toronto this spring.

Seneca Arts Festival 2016 (multiple locations)
The Seneca Arts Festival is comprised of 11 different events showcasing students work from a variety of programs. Starting with a voices speech competition on March 30 and ending with a celebration on May 18, all events are free and open to the public. Events range across all art platforms including fashion, documentary film, design and theatre performances.

Mass Exodus 2016 (341 Yonge Street)
Mass Exodus is the Ryerson School of Fashion's year-end event. The event is comprised of two events: the runway show, which presents fourth-year design students' final collections and the exhibit, which presents fourth-year fashion communication students' final creative projects. The exhibit opens April 9th and three shows run April 10th.

2016 Sheridan Illustration Graduate Show (99 Sudbury Street)
The Sheridan Illustration Graduate Show will run on April 14 and 15 to showcase a collection of images from a broad landscape of illustration from the graduation illustration students.

META XVI: Ryerson New Media Exhibition (66 Gerrard Street East)
Ryerson New Media's graduating class will hold their annual exhibition on April 14 to 16. Their pieces combine contemporary art practices with technological innovation. The pieces range from sound art, video installations, net art and augmented reality and all focus on user-interaction.

Visual and Digital Arts Graduate Exhibition (21 Colonel Samuel Smith Park Dr.)
This exhibit, running from April 18 to May 5, is completely created, promoted and installed by Humber's Visual and Digital Arts graduating class. The showcased pieces will feature a variety of fine art, design and private-sector industries.

The Intermission (British Columbia Rd)
The Intermission is the annual student-organized show by the graduating class of the York/Sheridan Program in Design. There will be a free show open to the public in the evening on April 19 where you can see the work and meet the students behind the designs.

GradEx 101 (100 McCaul Street)
In its 101st year, GradEx will be a five-day exhibition (May 4-8) across the OCAD University campus. Over 900 young artists and designers will showcase their work, including thesis work by graduating students. Over 18 different programs' work will be representing including photography, material art & design, printmaking, illustration and environmental design.

Maximum Exposure 2016 (122 Bond Street)
The Ryerson School of Image Arts' annual end-of-year exhibit will be held on May 5. This will be the shows 21st year and will highlight the thesis projects produced by graduating photography students, as well as display work from over 150 film and photography undergraduate students in the Image Arts program

What did I miss? Add your most anticipated art grad-student events in the comments.

Photo of Gradex via OcadU


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