Into the culture cave

For 17 days in June 2016 the Luminato Festival transformed the Hearn Generating Station in the Port Lands in Toronto into the largest temporary cultural and community centre in the world. The Hearn Generating Station is three times the size of Tate Modern and fits the Statue of Liberty in it upright. It was decommissioned in 1983 and apart from serving as a location for movie shoots, such as 'Robocop' and 'Pacific Rim', has been closed to the public. Into the Culture Cave fully documents this remarkable Festival and the 17 days that created a model for a multi-disciplinary cultural institution of the twenty-first century that is able to reflect the values of openness and diversity of the society that it is founded in. Conventional multi-disciplinary institutions like the Barbican Centre still separate in space and not in time. In the 'Culture Cave' this rule is inverted. Everything happens in one huge space inspired by the cave, the earliest form of human shelter but is separated in time. Audiences are able to experience the entire breadth of human activity and creativity and do not have to prioritise.