Learning the Signals/Change is Coming (DesignTO edition)

Documentation from the exhibition Forecast, Curated by DesignTO and co-presented with Harbourfront Centre. Photo by Christine Lim, courtesy of DesignTO:

Learning the Signals/Change is Coming [2021, ongoing]
Participatory project, website (fore-cast.ca), digitally printed silk banner, 2023.

Learning the Signals/Change is Coming considers strategies for anticipating the weather. Part of the larger series FORECAST, which considers the entanglement between environmental, social, political, and economic challenges facing the current moment, this participatory work looks more directly to the weather itself as a tool to help sense and predict the trajectory we are heading toward.

Participants were invited to share their readings of the weather via an online survey across the exhibition’s run (January 11 – February 4, 2023). Through the survey, participants recorded experiences of the day(s). With the collective goal to try and gain a better sense of place, together we will consider how the region smells, tastes, and generally seems this winter in an attempt to speculate about what to expect across future seasons.

From these shared observations, along with research into known strategies for anticipating shifts in the weather, a sort of (human) algorithm was developed in an attempt to forecast future weather.