This thesis project takes as its starting point the physical and psychic disconnect between the spectacular architectural façade of the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD U) and its lived, felt experience. It questions how performative, multi-sensorial artworks can force a reconsideration of the experience of space and, in so doing, embed alternative ways of being into built environments. Featuring artworks by Jessica Karuhanga, Faith La Rocque, and the duo Rouzbeh Akhbari and Sona Safaei-Sooreh, WARNING! Mind the Gap activates transitory or ancillary sites (such as hallways and entryways), drawing attention to the ways in which institutional hegemony obscures itself spatially and architecturally. Implemented as a series of site-specific interventions, the artworks transform the University’s interstitial spaces into sites of anti-colonial and institutional resistance through the creation of liminal experiences. The project thus encourages open-ended dialogue, un-settling the institution by privileging embodied responses within quotidian spaces.

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