Spadina Museum
Toronto, ON, Canada
Exhibition Booklet
Coverage in CBC Arts
Coverage in Design Milk
Mirror, solder, copper, stainless steel, sound, light, 28" Diameter
Photo by artist
Mirror, solder, copper, stainless steel, sound, light, 28" Diameter
Photo by artist
Mirror, solder, copper, stainless steel, zinc, 27.5" x 76.75" x 1" each
Photo by artist
Mirror, solder, copper, stainless steel, zinc, 27.5" x 76.75" x 1" each
Photo by artist
Glass, UV print on glass, solder, steel tin coating, flowers, 71" x 71" x 12"
Photo by artist
Glass, UV print on glass, solder, steel tin coating, flowers, 71" x 71" x 12"
Photo by artist
Glass, UV print on glass, solder, steel, wood, 16” x 47” x 8”
Photo by artist
Glass, UV print on glass, solder, steel, wood, 16” x 47” x 8”
Photo by artist
Moths, butterflies, mirror, coated steel, wood, silicone, 12' x 9' x 12'
Photo by artist
Moths, butterflies, mirror, coated steel, wood, silicone, 12' x 9' x 12'
Photo by artist
Moths, butterflies, mirror, coated steel, wood, silicone, 12' x 9' x 12'
Photo by artist
Moths, butterflies, mirror, coated steel, wood, silicone, 12' x 9' x 12'
Photo by artist
For In Broken Light, interdisciplinary artist Ry Van Der Hout sketches five stories inspired by inhabitants of Spadina past, present, and future. Five chapters unfold through five sculptural interventions across four storeys. Drawing on research and conversations with spiritual leaders, family descendants, historians, guides, and conservators, Van Der Hout traces 400 years of human and non-human presence at the historic house.
Van Der Hout’s artworks begin with rupture. Glass and mirror are deliberately shattered into fragments, then painstakingly repaired using Tiffany stained-glass techniques popularised during the Austin era. This physical transformation of material serves as a poignant metaphor for the transformation of the self. Drawing on concepts of queer becoming, the artist treats the breaking of the self not as destruction, but as a necessary opening: fragments are not returned to their original state, but fused into something new.
The process of rupture and repair also invokes the historical lineages of stained glass and the reliquary in Christendom, sacred vessels made to preserve and honour holy remains. Van Der Hout fuses shards of glass into elaborate containers for absence as much as presence, the sculptures becoming contemporary reliquaries for stories remembered and overlooked. In other sculptures, mirrors act as portals, offering paths towards alternate futures.
Central to Van Der Hout’s work is the idea that identity, memory, and experience become embedded in objects and space. Suspended and freestanding among the rooms of Spadina, the sculptures are less interventions than temporary inhabitants, making visible the emotional residue of lives lived within it. Their fractured surfaces reveal traces of rupture and repair, where cracks become apertures through which forgotten stories emerge. Moving between deep histories, the present day, and an imagined future, In Broken Light traces connections across time, where fragments persist, reflections multiply, and the boundaries between past, present, and future remain open.