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What if connection began before the first artwork?
This proposal introduces a large-scale artwork designed for the AGO lobby, positioned across from the Welcome Desk, designed to draw visitors in, slow them down, and invite connection from the moment they arrive.
From a distance, it’s a bold geometric composition…
UP CLOSE, IT GIVES A REASON TO STAY LONGER THAN YOU PLANNED.
Visitors lean in. Details begin to emerge. Artworks, histories, and stories drawn from the AGO’s collection. Recognition sparks. Discovery follows. Connections begin to form.
The artwork is composed of thousands of hand-placed paper images, each sourced from the AGO’s collection, archives, and institutional history.
PAINTINGS. SCULPTURES. ARCHITECTURE. DETAILS.
Each fragment represents a visual voice. Together, they form a single, cohesive artwork that reflects the breadth of the AGO’s collection and creates a space where diverse visual voices belong together.
Imagery selection would be developed collaboratively with AGO educators and program teams, reflecting the Power of Together that defines the institution’s mission and alignment with existing learning initiatives and audience engagement goals.
The final composition would reflect the AGO’s commitment to representing diverse voices across its collection, including artists and subjects from Indigenous, BIPOC, women, and 2SLGBTQ+ communities, forming a visual dialogue that reflects the people who live here in Toronto and across Canada.
The AGO was built on connection…
Every visitor arrives with the same instinct: to look, to engage, and to find meaning through art. This artwork meets that instinct at the threshold. In a space designed for gathering, learning, and shared experience, it creates an immediate point of engagement.
Something to SPARK CONNECTION
Something to ENGAGE WITH
Something to EXPLORE TOGETHER
From a distance, the artwork reads as a bold, geomertic composition, echoing the architectural language of the nearby Walker Court and the curves of the Allan Slaight and Emmanuelle Gattuso Spiral Staircase.
Up close, it shifts. Thousands of paper fragments from across the AGO’s collection come into focus, drawing attention to artworks, histories, and visual perspectives that reflect the people who live here.
The circular format invites viewers of all ages and mobility levels to engage from any position, creating an accessible point of connection from the moment visitors arrive.
… But it grows through interaction
A nearby touch screen allows visitors to explore the artwork in detail, revealing the story behind each fragment and encouraging self-directed discovery.
This interactive component supports meaningful engagement with visitors of all ages, encouraging audiences to explore the collection through curiosity, connection, and shared discovery.
What begins as a single image becomes a shared point of exploration. A way to engage with ART through curiosity, LEARNING, and meaningful connection with the AUDIENCE and the broader collection.
Connection Made Visible
Connection sits at the centre of Lesley Luce’s creative practice.Each body of work begins with research into a chosen subject, uncovering histories, visual languages, and unexpected relationships between artworks.
These discoveries are translated into thousands of hand-placed paper fragments, arranged in precise concentric compositions.
Her compositions create a space where diverse visual voices belong together.
Based in Toronto, Lesley Luce’s work reflects the city itself, a mosaic of diverse voices brought together through shared experience.
A self-described late bloomer, her creative perspective was shaped by returning to art after careers and motherhood. It draws on her experience as a parent and lifelong visitor to galleries and museums, and on her interest in how people learn, engage, and connect through art.
This proposal extends her established way of working into a new context, using the AGO’s collection as both material and subject.
This project represents an opportunity to expand the artist’s research-based practice into collaborative institutional contexts, deepening engagement with the AGO’s collection and audiences.
The goal is to explore how an interactive artwork like this could live within the AGO and contribute to the visitor experience through ART, LEARNING, and meaningful connection with its AUDIENCE.
Visual mockups and further details are available, including scale, materials, and interactive integration. Mockups shown are illustrative.
This is a starting point.
If this resonates, the next step is simply a conversation.
