Upcoming Events

🏳️‍🌈Parade Line-Up🏳️‍🌈

Ready to join a virtual parade? Our Virtual Pride line-up is a collection of fantastical 3D inhabitable spaces designed by architects, designers and artists around this year’s theme OUT: What does it mean to be out when you are staying in? How does space alter the experience of private and public life? How do we celebrate outness architecturally? Our virtual floats are online community spaces, allowing us to celebrate virtually together even when staying apart. Think of them like virtual Winterstations but with an LGBTQI2 lens! 

Want to learn more about their design? A recording of our launch event on June 18, 2020 with presentations from all the designers is available below!

Watch the Big Reveal 

🏳️‍🌈Ready to Join In?🏳️‍🌈

There are two ways to explore these spaces — you can click on the image of our Virtual Village and start from there then click on the images within the village to access the different virtual worlds, OR you can access any of the floats directly through the links below (think of it like your very own back door access!)

Ok! You’re all set!  Have fun and Happy Pride!

Virtual Village

What would Pride in Toronto be without our very own Church and Wellesley Village? The Virtual Village is the hub of the TSA’s Virtual Pride Parade and a good starting point to meet with friends as you explore each of the floats! Once on Church Street, you can click on the images of the different floats to visit them.

Visit the Village! 

Splash Palace
AAmp Studio | Andrew Ashey, Anne-Marie Armstrong and Ethan O’Kane

Splash Palace is a vessel for expression, exploration and delight! Its layered and labyrinthine system of baths, showers and pool-scapes embraces ambiguity and outness. Its neutral setting of wet rooms and sensory experiences encourage visitors to bring life to the space in their own way, at their own speed. Come in, come out, take a dip, and explore!

Queer Clouds
Timothy Birchard

This project explores concepts of identity, body and form in the digital age. Our chosen family networks, friend networks, lovers now shift between the digital and the physical. They are collages of data, identity, time and space.

This project uses manipulated data (point cloud scans) of queer colleagues and attempts to visualize the infinite network of digital connections that make our current queer community so rich and vibrant.

CAKE
Farah Manley and Natalia Bakaeva from Interspatial Collective

CAKE is a layered space for celebrating an online Pride 2020. CAKE is a Virtual Float where your avatar will travel vertically to experience a Rainbow Garden, a Floating Jungle and a Cloudy Ocean in one imaginary space. Our interpretation of being OUT is to experience everything at once – in any shape, form and combination you have not seen before.

Mall
Kilogram Studio | Kfir Gluzberg and January Chen

Welcome to the Mall – let’s go on a spree! Meet me in the main hall. We’ll need to find our own way there so wind up the stairs. We might meet at the top. I’ll look out for you on the way up.

Rainbow Flag Agora
DS Studio | Christopher Blackwell, Shalice Coutu, Dina Sarhane

A communal gathering space for conversation and engagement centered around topics highlighted in each color of the rainbow flag : Red, orange, yellow, violet, turquoise, indigo, green and black.

Please enter, download our guidebook and stroll through our space. If you would like to fly up to the occupiable cube gallery, press “G” and up you go. Have a good stay and thank you for your visit. Happy Pride!

Defining Intersections
Guadalupe Koen Alonso and Madeline Barnes Planer

Our float explores intersectionality as a spatial language.

We were inspired by the question: How do we inhabit space – defined by ourselves and others – as individuals with intersecting identities? We wanted to create a space that celebrates where these paths cross. The intersections that allow us to be out, in all our identities.

Colossal Busy Sphere
Kurtis Chen and Janice Miyagi

Coded languages of visibility, created out of necessity by the LGBTQ+ community, result in moments of recognition that rely on the many definitions of being “out”. As you traverse the space, we hope the flashes of movement beyond your gaze and the opportunities for chance encounters entice you to continue to explore. To be out is to see, to be seen, and to be recognized.

Unity
Denegri Bessai Studio

Set on a splashy, multicolored stage, our float acts as a host for spirited, public performances while embodying the strength of community. It celebrates the blurred boundary between inside and out through its open, skeletal structure whose integrity is based on the interdependency of its parts. Based in reality and embracing the virtual, Unity welcomes all to a Festive Fantasy Island!

FAQ

So…What Exactly is a Virtual Float?

For this digital celebration, a virtual float is a space designed to be inhabited in an online 3D-world where groups of avatars (people) will be able to walk around, look around, and talk to each other. Think of it like a digital version of the winterstations, but with a LGBTQI2S lens. 

Our virtual celebration will take place on Mozilla Hubs—an open-source, non-profit, virtual 3D environment. Hubs works on any device, including smartphones, VR sets, in-browser, without the need to install any software. Hubs also permits multiple users (up to 25 simultaneously) to interact with each other in a space which can include music, videos, and other effects.

Do I need special software? 

Not at all! You can access the Big Reveal and all our virtual spaces from a web browser on your phone, tablet or computer! The Big Reveal will be held on Zoom followed by the official opening on Mozilla Hubs which you can access from a link. 

Are there other ways to experience the spaces?

There are many different ways of experiencing the floats, even if you can’t attend the Big Reveal. All floats will be featured on the TSA website, along with stills and descriptions of the spaces. We know VR reality is not for everyone and if you are sensitive to motion sickness or can’t otherwise access the spaces we want to make sure you can still enjoy this unique experiment.