Fragments of mirrored glass split, catch the ambient daylight, and then come together as an entirely new whole. Within the storied, century-old rooms of Toronto’s Spadina Museum—an 1866 historic mansion steeped in local heritage—interdisciplinary artist Ry Van Der Hout has installed a series of sculptures that catch the light to open fresh, unconventional ways of seeing and hearing family lore. Entitled In Broken Light, the deeply site-specific exhibition features a suite of new works by Van Der Hout that officially opened at the museum on August 26 and is scheduled to run through October 18, inviting visitors to experience the historic landmark through a thoroughly contemporary and reflective artistic lens.
The exhibition transforms the domestic architecture of the Victorian-era estate into a living canvas where past and present converge. "At the heart of In Broken Light is the understanding that shattering isn’t the end of a story—it’s the beginning of a new narrative," explains curator Adrien Sun Hall. According to Hall, Van Der Hout begins their sculptural practice with acts of intentional breaking, shattering glass and mirrors only to painstakingly solder them back together using traditional Tiffany stained-glass techniques. These intricately mended surfaces ultimately function as profound metaphors for queer becoming and personal transformation, turning physical fractures into distinct apertures through which overlooked and marginalized histories can emerge. In doing so, the sculptures are elevated into contemporary reliquaries dedicated to lives both remembered and forgotten by the official historical record.
Spanning the mansion’s four distinct floors, the exhibition comprises five major sculptural interventions that incorporate photography, stained glass, and mirrors. Each piece is meticulously responsive to the specific architectural character and historical weight of the room it occupies. To develop these works, Van Der Hout engaged in extensive research and dialogue with a diverse group of spiritual leaders, family descendants, historians, museum guides, and professional conservators. The former resident families of the Spadina estate supplied ample artistic inspiration, with their actual histories—ranging from tales of forbidden love to accounts of fatal illness—proving to be, as the saying goes, stranger than fiction.
The journey through the exhibition moves visitors vertically and chronologically through the house, beginning in the most foundational spaces. In the basement’s preserved archaeological dig site, a fractured disco ball slowly spins to a NASA-produced audio track, casting a complex, swirling mosaic of light onto the weathered stone walls and infilled windows. Moving upstairs, visitors encounter a stained-glass sculpture printed with photographs of Tiber, a historical interpreter at the museum. This piece has been shattered and meticulously reassembled by the artist, who constructed it using a reclaimed antique dressing-table mirror holder discovered serendipitously in a dumpster located right outside their studio.
Reflecting on that serendipitous discovery, Van Der Hout notes how the material itself seemed to dictate the direction of the project. "It felt like I got pulled into this story of an object guiding you to tell you that you are in the right place," the artist shares.
Perhaps the most ambitious and physically commanding intervention in the exhibition is the largest work, titled Open Wing Death. Installed on the unrestored third floor of the Spadina Museum, the piece takes the form of a 12-foot-high ovoid geodesic dome. The third floor itself carries a heavy historical resonance; added in 1913 as a sunlit medical sanctuary for a resident suffering from tuberculosis, the space later transitioned into quarters for the household’s domestic staff, to whom Van Der Hout’s sculpture is dedicated. Standing before the dome offers a deeply disorienting and intimate perceptual experience. Before peering inside the structure, visitors catch stray, unexpected glimpses of themselves reflected in the mirrored facets from various angles. For a fleeting, split second, one appears to oneself as a complete stranger, observed as if through the eyes of someone else, before personal recognition slowly sets in and anchors the viewer back to reality.
Through these delicate yet structurally complex interventions, In Broken Light succeeds in reframing a traditional house museum not as a static monument to the past, but as a porous, emotionally charged environment. By bridging historical archives with contemporary identity and material transformation, Van Der Hout’s sculptures offer a luminous meditation on how communities and individuals gather their scattered pieces to form new narratives. The exhibition remains on view at the Spadina Museum in Toronto until October 18.
