A look inside Long Winter’s blanket fort for grown-ups

INsulator bills itself as an audio-visual art installation, but, in plain language, it’s a blanket fort for adults. On Wednesday and Thursday at the Artscape Sandbox, attendees can wander through the 6,000-square-foot fabric maze as video projections and live music from 13 Toronto bands and musicians—including Jennifer Castle, Fucked Up, Lido Pimienta and Yamantaka // Sonic Titan—fill the space. The spectacle is a collaboration between the multi-disciplinary collective Heretical Objects Cooperative; the team behind the eclectic event series Long Winter; and curator Jaclyn Blumas, whose band Doomsquad is playing the event. She says INsulator is inspired by a four-hour show she played in a fabric maze at Halifax Pop Explosion—but, this time, the labyrinth is larger and more interactive. “As the audience moves, the images will change,” Blumas says. “And the audience is really going to affect what the bands will play.” Here’s a closer look at the space:

The organizers used more than 5,000 square feet of polyester-nylon fabric to create the maze’s nine-foot-tall walls. Around the edges of the maze, where attendees can’t see them, each act will play a 15-minute set; for five of those minutes, their music will overlap with the next band’s set. For example, Soupcans’  hardcore punk will bleed into Jennifer Castle’s folk. “It will be seamless,” Blumas says. “The audience won’t know who’s playing.”

In the middle of the maze is a large area filled with pillows, where attendees can lounge and watch projections on the ceiling. There will also be a not-so-hidden wine bar located here.

Porch Media created looped videos of city scenes—set in places like public parks, next to the 401 and on the TTC—which will be projected on the maze’s walls and ceiling. As attendees meander through the maze, the fabric will ripple and distort the images.