Masterworks 2025 Open Call for Submissions: Tracing Time

We invite recent graduates of the Masters program (within the past 2 years) to submit their research as part of an immersive exhibition entitled Tracing Time. The exhibition will ask how meaning develops through process.

Hannah Arendt defines work as useful objects that are durable because they are a tangible manifestation of experience. In an era of context collapse, and image proliferation, an understanding of process has been lost and work has become abstract, losing its durability. This exhibition will explore how the indexing of process restores the tangibility of work. How can we approach the creation of architecture and design (work), not only through immediate encounters that unfold in time, but as something which has a history?1 

An index can be understood as a physical trace. It is a phenomenon that speaks of processes that have taken place in time, it indicates.2 Examples include but are not limited to the imprint of formwork on concrete, bricked in windows, site specific material reuse. How does your thesis work intentionally leave traces of process? 

As part of your submission, please include a selection of three to five figures/artifacts from your completed thesis that best summarize your work. These can be any medium including but not limited to drawings, renderings, material tests, models, photographs, etc. With these figures please include supplementary process work ie. video of you making the artifact, images of previous iterations of the design, sketches, documentation, etc. Please also include a short text on how your research project responds to this call. 

Submission materials: 

● Submission text (max. 300 words) 

● A list of 3-5 proposed figures/artifacts, with supporting process work, each with a brief descriptive title 

● A concise bio (max. 150 words) 

The submission deadline is Friday, March 7th, 2025. Packaged materials can be sent to ealenny@uwaterloo.ca 

Graduates whose submissions are selected will receive an honorarium to cover expenses related to travel and physical installation. Upon announcement of the selected research projects, graduates will be asked to create layouts of their work using a graphic template. Please consider the time needed for this task when submitting. Tracing Time will open at Riverside Gallery May 20th. 

1 Ann Bordeleau, “An Indexical Approach to Architecture,” Footprint issue 3 (2008): 86. 2 Bordeleau, “An Indexical Approach to Architecture,” 86.