Chroma Lives is a performative archive project by Erin Alexa Freedman and Lili Huston-Herterich that explores Chromaliving: New Designs for Living, a sprawling group exhibition that took place in Toronto in 1983. Chromaliving occupied a former department store with a theatricalized vision of contemporary living through domestic room displays outfitted in artist-made furniture, dressed mannequins, appliances, and interior decoration.

The research project Chroma Lives asks the question: how can one reanimate this large-scale exhibition from Toronto’s recent art historical past? And how is it possible to then suture it to contemporary practices within the city and further afield, which share an interest in art and design, and collaborative practices? Freedman and Huston-Herterich responded to these questions by staging a contemporary exhibition in a condominium presentation centre in Toronto in June 2016, from which they compiled an archive of ephemera and oral histories documenting the original event.

For the final presentation of Chroma Lives, they will narrate their research project in a custom-built display including aspects of the archive alongside selected works from Chromaliving artists, the contemporary Toronto artists who presented in its condominium restaging and Amsterdam-based artist working at the intersection of art and design.

Following the presentation, Grant Watson will moderate a conversation with Freedman and Huston-Herterich. Grant Watson is a curator and researcher who previously developed the interview project How We Behave with If I Can’t Dance, and who is well known for his curatorial work on textiles and textile histories.

Chroma Lives is presented as part of If I Can’t Dance’s Finale for Edition VI – Event and Duration (2015 – 2016.