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Commons of Care (CofC): Re-Imagining Nocturnal Waters in Montreal

Building on the research project Nighttime Design with Marginalized Communities, developed as part of �鶹��’s contribution to the SSHRC Partnership Quality in Canada’s Built Environment: Roadmaps to Equity, Social Value and Sustainability (2022–2027), Türeli and Thain propose the next phase of their collaboration: Commons of Care (CofC): Re Imagining Nocturnal Waters in Montreal.

Extending five years of SSHRC-funded research on spaces of night care, CofC brings together night studies, spatial care, and water justice to examine how urban waters shape experiences of belonging, stewardship, and collective life, particularly for Indigenous, queer, diasporic, and unhoused communities. The project will culminate in a month-long public exhibition hosted by �鶹��’s School of Architecture, accompanied by workshops, site-specific film screenings, artist residencies, public discussions, and a research colloquium held alongside the Partnership’s final national gathering. Building on established interdisciplinary and community partnerships, CofC advances a shared commitment to creative, public-facing, and community-engaged research.

This research-creation portfolio features three projects: 

1. Design for the Global Majority (2023);
2. Architecture Playshop (2020-22); and
3. InSomnolence (2023).

(1) Design for the Global Majority — 2023

Exhibition Curation

Co-curated by Ipek Türeli (with Vikram Bhatt and Arièle Dionne-Krosnick), the Design for the Global Majority Project exhibitions critically re-examined the Minimum Cost Housing Group’s pioneering efforts in developing low-cost and sustainable housing solutions. October 2-27 at the School of Architecture and April 12-June 9, 2023, at the �鶹�� Library. Alongside exhibitions, Türeli organized workshops, talks, guided tours, an international symposium, and oral history interviews with alumni of the program. In 2024, she made a 30-minute documentary film based on the program. This project was funded by the SSHRC Connection Grant.

“Densely filled with remarkable objects and documents, Design for the Global Majority offers a humble manifesto for iterative, incremental change.”

Review – Peter Sealy, Canadian Architect

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“The curatorial strategy prioritized process and pedagogy, inviting visitors to engage with the group’s legacy as a living toolkit for contemporary design challenges.”

Review - Lev Bratishenko, The Architect’s Paper

 

“The aesthetic dimension reinforced the exhibition’s significance not as a historical representation but as a demonstration of the MCHG ethos through exploratory practice.”

Review - Lee Stickels, JSAH

For more information, visit: www.mcgill.ca/mchg/design-global-majority

(2) Architecture Playshop — 2020-22

Research-Creation Program

Architecture Playshop is an online curriculum developed by Ipek Türeli with a team of experts in education, children’s art, graphic design, animation, and architecture students. It aims to develop critical literacy with young children around climate change, forced migration and the built environment.

Architecture Playshop, funded by an SSHRC Connection Grant, was invited as part of the programming for the Korea Pavilion at the 2021/2022 Venice Biennale. It received an Honourable Mention at UIA (International Union of Architects) Golden Cube Awards in 2023 to which it was Canada’s nomination.

For more information, visit: www.mcgill.ca/architectureplayshop/

(3) InSomnolence — 2023

Exhibition Curation

Co-curated by Alanna Thain (with Aleksandra Kaminska, and Marianne Cloutier), “InSomnolence” explored sleep as a shared, creative, and embodied experience, challenging its commodification and individualization. The curators invited visitors into the fluid, intersubjective space of sleep through immersive design at the Agora d’Hydro-Quebec at the Université de Québec à Montréal from June 21 to July 13, 2023. This project was funded by the FRQ.

“To traverse the exhibition space was to engage with sleep’s many socialites, the nature of consciousness in excess of wakefulness, and how these murmuring forms might connect with one another as a way to meet elsewhere.”

Review - Matthew-Robin Nye, The Polyphony

 

“…an oneiric playground for soft encounters with sleep and sleeplessness, for playful experiments with hypnagogic and hypnopompic threshold states.”

Review - Toni Pape,  NECSUS

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For more information, visit:

Biographies of Co-Applicants

Ipek Türeli is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Architectures of Spatial Justice at the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture at �鶹��. She coordinates the research group Democracy Space and Technology under the Lin Centre at �鶹��, and is a member of the Montreal interuniversity network Leap. Her research focuses on low-income housing, participatory design, civil protest, and racialized campus landscapes. She is the author of Istanbul, Open City (2018) and co-editor of Orienting Istanbul (2010).
 

Alanna Thain is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies, World Cinemas, and Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at �鶹��. She directs the Moving Image Research Lab and leads the CORÉRISC research team on embodied risk. She is also a member of GRAFIM. Her work explores immersive media, mobile technologies, dance movement, and ambient ecologies. She is the author of Bodies in Suspense: Time and Affect in Cinema (2017) and co-editor of Lo Tech Pop Cult: Screendance Remixed (2024).