PlaySpace (PS707) is for following the creative impulse. Hosted by the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence, PS707 is an urban, floor-to-ceiling glass storefront shipping container space located in downtown Toronto. It’s high-impact and low-stakes. Artists and researchers use PS707 to make, experiment, explore and try things out in community. Apply with a short proposal here.
PS707 is short for PlaySpace at 707 Dundas St West.
Accessibility and Transit Options
PlaySpace is located at 707 Dundas St West, in downtown Toronto. It’s the bright pink unit in the south end of the shipping container market outside Scadding Court Community Centre, affectionately known as Market 707.
PlaySpace has a small 3-inch rise at the door. At the moment, there is no ramp yet. The shipping container only has one door for entrance and exits. The unit has air conditioning and an air purifier that uses UV-C light.
Accessible washrooms inside Scadding Court Community Centre are open until 9pm. An accessibility ramp is located on the east side of the building, between the north and south ends of the market.
Closest TTC stops are the 511 Bathurst streetcar, and the 505 Dundas streetcar, with a short 2-minute walk to the market.
Upcoming Events
Apply to PlaySpace
PlaySpace residencies may involve public engagement, making installations or interventions, designing or conducting research, devising or presenting performances, developing prototypes or practices, or something else you’re thinking of doing… Residencies can vary in length, from one to six weeks, depending on your intentions. If you just need a pop-up space for one day or one weekend, that’s fine too.
Photos and logistical details available here.
Residencies are generally supported by the Lab with assistance such as:
- Marketing & communications support (graphic design, blog, social media)
- Support for your grant writing / fundraising efforts (e.g. letter of support)
- Project documentation (photo / video)
- Feedback as desired (artistic, technical, research, development)
Artists, curators, professors, philosophers, researchers, theorists, scientists and other makers / shapers / thinkers are welcome to express interest in a residency using the form below. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
After submitting, you will receive a confirmation email. If you do not, please let us know: info@artisticintelligence.com
Past Residencies
On Dismantling & Weaving New From Old: “‘Wearability’ is not the end of life” – An Artist Statement By Joe Lewis
Artist Joe Lewis holds up an embroidery sampler on a dismantled pillow case (27.94 cm X 223.52 cm). Artist Statement Having learned to turn old bed sheets into braided rugs at the age of three, I was raised to believe that any cloth that came into our house had to pull its own weight. By that I mean whether it was clothing or a domestic textile, it would have a second use. Clothing would be mended and past down to at least two of my three younger siblings just as mine came from my 4 other…
Rainbow Circle: An Augmented Reality Comic Book Project by Cynthia Undyantara
YOUR PHONE IS A PORTAL. Wander by PS707 and use your cellphone to unlock a rich Augmented Reality experience. As winter approaches, PS707 switches over to primarily function as a window gallery. Stop by PS707 on your winter walks to see what's on view behind the glass. Blending art, animation, and technology, the current window installation at PS707 brings to life excerpts from Cynthia Undyantara's upcoming ‘Rainbow Circle’ comic. You simply use your phone's camera to read the QR code in the…
The Drawing Forest: A 5-Hour Drawing Exercise by Heather Frise and Anita Matusevics
Interview with artists Heather Frise & Anita Matusevics 1. What inspired you to want to draw with others? what led to this impulse of co-creating large scale drawings with community and passerbys? We met at the birthday picnic of a mutual friend and somehow very quickly agreed that we should one day create some form of drawing school based around perception, creativity and links to nature... Drawing is something anyone can do. We all have the capacity to make marks with a pencil on paper.…
Origins & Endings: Photography by Sebastian Portillo
Reflections from the artist Origins & Endings brings together two projects: Notes on Biology and The Day I Destroyed the World, both collections developed with support from the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Mexico. Notes on Biology is, metaphorically, the longest conversation I have ever had with my father. It begins with his notes on biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and more, written during his youth at university, years before I was born. Within those notes I…
Poetic Assembly: An invitation to co-create a mobile poetry library
We’re calling on our community to help us co-create a mobile poetry library. Poetic Assembly is an interdisciplinary project and newly formed collective of cultural workers, united by a shared vision of creating opportunities for decolonized study and gathering. Our goal is to develop a mobile library focused on circulating poetry to foster community engagement and preservation. We view poetry as an active method for cultivating relationality and enlivened perception, helping us see beyond…
Look, Listen, Draw: A Collaborative Exploration of Nature, Place and Storytelling
Take a break and come draw with us. Wednesday, July 16, 2025. 10am - 1pm Friday, July 18, 2025. 4pm-6pm We are creating an “imaginary line,” an immersive and participatory drawing practice that engages artists and community members in an exploration of nature, memory, ritual, and seasonal rhythms. Through large-scale collaborative drawing workshops, we will investigate how collective mark-making can foster deeper connections to urban nature and each other. During this PlaySpace residency, we…
Mystic Air: Coleman Hell’s ode to air conditioners
From June 4 to 11, 2025, artist-musician Coleman Hell presents an exhibition on air conditioners called Mystic Air... Join us for Coleman's exhibition opening, and the start of patio season, on Saturday June 7, 2025 from 4-7pm. Air conditioners often go unnoticed. Noble beasts bearing the cost of human comfort. Their brackets, bolted into the city-skin, carry the weight of our existence. AC= All Colours: the full spectrum of emotions transmuted through our body heat. Private feelings floating…
Elixir of Life: Alek Phan Reflects on Water
Under The Orange Sun by Alek Phan Trúc Artist Statement Nobel Prize-winning physicist C.V. Raman, who was awarded the prize in 1930 for his work on ‘the scattering of light”, once observed that we often take water for granted, forgetting that it is one of the most powerful forces on Earth, and that “the true elixir of life is water”. Water has shaped our planet’s history and remains a vital force in the ongoing story of life. When silt-laden freshwater merges with the salty sea, the particles…
An Invitation with Returning River
The Returning River collective and the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence invite you for an art + community gathering in celebration of Chinese Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. Free and open to all! Friday September 20, 2024 5:30pm Storytelling walk. Meet at Huron Square. 6:30pm Performances at Scadding Court, starting outside the Lab's PlaySpace before moving indoors. The event opens with a storytelling walk through Chinatown led by artist Kwoi Gin, who will regale you with funny, tender,…
Renaissance in Residence: Paper
Poster art by Renaissance, 2024. Photo courtesy of the artist. August 23-24, 2024, Toronto-based street artist Renaissance will be creating work in the Lab's PlaySpace. A micro-residency. Artist Statement Paper originated from a tree that stood as a beacon for many generations as a self-sustaining ecosystem before it was cut down severed from its roots taken from its community broken down altered and changed into the form we know now as paper. This current project that I am embarking on is…
Nava Waxman working with Blue Gestures and other archival images
A short interview with artist Nava Waxman whose creative research is on view in the Lab's PlaySpace from August 9 to 23, 2024. Thank you for sharing your art with the public! How was it creating in the space? I wasn’t sure what to expect and how it would unfold, but I felt I was guided by the possibility of bringing some photographic images that communicate with the Lab, the community, and the physical space as a shipping container, which I felt is such a liminal and transitory space. And I…
Longing Belonging Redux
Poster art by Kwoi Gin We're proud to launch our new home with a poster art series by artist Kwoi Gin. Longing Belonging Redux is a vivid, powerful assemblage of tableaux vivant dealing with unarchived history. The exhibition is on view July 17 to 31, 2024 at the Lab's new PlaySpace at 707 Dundas St West. "My father came under the guise of PaperSon," writes Kwoi, during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act when Canada denied Chinese people from immigrating on the basis of race, after using tens…
Patio Party this Friday!
If you're in Toronto, drop by a Patio Party we're co-hosting in the courtyard at Scadding Court Community Centre (707 Dundas St W). It's a free, family-friendly outdoor event with a special performance at 9pm (hint: flash mob). There will be art and music by members of the Lab, as well as pop-up vendors, crafting areas for all ages, and food of many flavours. Our friends at Long Time No See Collective also have a poster art exhibition on view at Scadding Court. Kwoi Gin will be exhibiting…