CU is part of Toronto Design Week and is an exploration into the properties of copper. The show is part of a larger event put on by Endless City and is located at 1161 Dundas St. W. Toronto. Programming ranges from talks on the state of design infrastructure in Canada, video installations, an OCAD student competition, and a dinner with edible copper on the menu.

Copper has been in use for 10,000 years, yet over 97% of the mineral mined had already been extracted from the earth by 1910; as such, any new use of copper in product, art, architecture and industry has been the result of perpetual recycling. The metal has become an overused material in design over the past few years, a trend that continues to gain momentum. The CU exhibition takes a different approach. Through a process called electroforming, Castor has utilized old pieces of copper pipe and dissolved them in order to grow metal onto organic, non-metallic materials in a charged bath. The work is based in science as much as in design, using Faraday’s Law (the relationship between the weight, electrical current, and time) to create something entirely new. The process of electroplating gives each piece a unique texture and a painterly quality; dendritic crystallization is controlled through change in electrical current. Alongside scientific processes, Castor used various forms of manufacturing – from glass blowing, stone carving, 3D printing, and laser cutting. Science is cool.