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Yabu Pushelberg
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In their Toronto studio’s industrial gallery space, global design powerhouse Yabu Pushelberg presents “To Hold,” an exhibition that probes the transformative potential of a deceptively simple action. Rather than exploring holding as mere physical containment, the show investigates it as an act of preservation, transformation, and meaning-making through works by twelve Canadian artists and designers. The result is a richly layered dialogue between materiality and memory, between what we keep and what keeps us.
The exhibition’s strength emerges through its diverse material interpretations. Dennis Lin’s “While you were away” transforms remnants of his family’s fire-damaged library into a suspended composition that preserves traces of memory and loss. Simon Petepiece reimagines construction materials through “The Drafter,” where steel studs and drywall become a cathedral-like framework etched with childhood drawings. In collaboration with Toronto Metropolitan University’s Design and Technology Lab, works like “Jell-OH?!” push technical boundaries through robotic 3D printing and UV techniques, while Georgia Dickie’s assemblages and Verre d’onge’s glass experiments offer more contemplative explorations of preservation and transformation.
Beyond its conceptual framework, the exhibition reflects Yabu Pushelberg’s evolving vision for supporting Canadian design talent. Having shaped luxury retail and hospitality spaces globally, the studio now turns toward fostering creative dialogue within their local community. This focus on amplifying diverse voices while maintaining their signature emphasis on craft and innovation suggests a promising future for Toronto’s design landscape. Through “To Hold,” Yabu Pushelberg moves beyond their role as designers to become facilitators of meaningful exchange about how objects carry and transform meaning in our lives. Read below for our conversation with Bahar Ghaemi, Creative Director of Products at Yabu Pushelberg, and Jonathon Anderson, The Director of the Design + Technology Lab at TMU.
The exhibition explores how “holding” can transform objects and create new narratives. Could you walk us through your curatorial vision and how you selected pieces that exemplify this theme in different ways?
Bahar Ghaemi: For this show, we reached out to established and emerging Canadian artists and designers that we admire, aiming to see how they would interpret the theme from either a designer’s or an artist’s perspective. We wanted to connect with Toronto’s art and design community by opening our studio doors to the public, offering a behind-the-scenes look at Yabu Pushelberg.
Some artists approached the concept through a personal lens, such as Dennis Lin, whose work holds and honors the memory of artifacts from a fire that affected his home and destroyed his family library. Others explored the theme through materiality or irony, transforming perceptions through presentation. For instance, Simon Petepiece’s cathedral-like presentation of common construction materials, including steel studs and drywall, reimagines their context in The Drafter. Similarly, the Design + Technology Lab’s Jell-OH?! was fabricated using a combination of advanced and emerging technologies, including robotic 3D printing, CNC milling, and UV printing.
What motivated bringing together this specific group of Canadian artists and designers? How do their diverse approaches reflect or challenge our understanding of what it means “to hold”?
Bahar: We wanted to celebrate a diverse collection of narratives from different backgrounds and identities—not taking too seriously what it means to be “Canadian,” as that identity is inherently blended and unique to each person. This show aims to elevate and amplify Canadian voices, setting their talent on an international stage without restricting what that might look like. Instead, it takes a more intimate approach, asking the artists and designers to reflect on what they want ‘To Hold.’
Could you share some behind-the-scenes insights about working with the Design and Technology Lab and how this collaboration shaped the exhibition’s development?
Jonathon Anderson: Collaborations like To Hold showcase how the industry and the academy can challenge the use of creative technology while celebrating the diversity within design. The future of education relies heavily on a closer connection between industry and the academy to push the boundaries of design and celebrate new forms of creative scholarship.
The concept of “holding” seems particularly relevant to our current moment. How does this exhibition reflect or respond to broader cultural conversations?
Bahar: To Hold reflects themes of endurance, connection, and longing—it is an emotional gesture. The exhibition theme is more than just a prompt. It offered an open-ended possibility for what the artists and designers could create, allowing them to be contemplative and reflective.
While ideating different concepts for the show, George and Glenn resonated with To Hold—as collectors, they have an affinity for collecting and displaying art and objects that have personal meaning. In that way, To Hold explores how everyday objects can become reliquaries, transformed into art through the way we hold and interact with them.
The exhibition uses devices like irony, scale, metaphor, and materials to explore holding. Could you highlight a few pieces that particularly subvert expectations or create surprising narratives?
Bahar: All the pieces in the exhibition use devices like irony, scale, metaphor, and materials to explore holding in their own distinct ways—through memory, materials, found objects, form, or technique. We wanted To Hold to be an opportunity for the artists and designers to play and be liberated from our more rational design approach.
To Hold can be seen in discarded materials, such as in Georgia Dickie’s Cup 2 (2022), where the materials are carefully arranged to create an intimate assemblage that feels tender and precious. Or, it can be seen in a cluster of vessels, as in Verre d’onge’s Assemblage No.1, where blown glass is fused together, no longer serving its function as a container but instead as a sculpture held by a metal stand.
Dennis Lin’s While you were away transforms the remnants of his family’s library, destroyed in a devastating fire, into a suspended composition of burnt memories and charcoal. Delicately balanced, the work preserves traces of memory and loss, freezing them in time.
Simon Petepiece’s The Drafter reimagines construction materials as art, using steel studs to create a skeletal framework and a drywall panel etched with drawings inspired by childhood prints. The piece blurs the line between function and form, presenting an unexpected narrative of transformation.