• Bodyshop (Carnival of Algorithmic Culture, June 2023) - closed
• Artscape Launchpad (Carnival of Algorithmic Culture, June 2023) - closed
• Spadinababy (Carnival of Shipwreck, October 2024) - closed
• UKAI at the Bridge (August 2023 - March 2025) - closed

We moved into our studio in August of 2023 and since then we have hosted over 5,000 folks and showcased work by over 300 artists through a range of workshops, open studios, parties, exhibitions, planning sessions, and more. One of our goals has been to connect disparate communities and scenes. Connections made through the space have led to innumerable collaborations, friendships, and events.

On March 31, 2025, UKAI will be exiting this space as part of a broader trend that is seeing experimental cultural spaces disappear.

We did the things we were supposed to do. We followed, despite their betrayal, the advice of Malcolm Costello and his anonymous investment firm. Earned revenue now accounts for around 25% of our total. We reached out to the primary funders to see about operating support for our work. The Canada Council let us know that operating funding wasn’t really a possibility as there were so many legacy institutions drawing on a diminishing pool of money. The Toronto Arts Council encouraged us to apply. We were unsuccessful, and received feedback from a jury member that perhaps “we were not really art”. We solicited corporate support, though few companies were open to supporting work that called into question the fundamentals of how they make money and who is left in the cold as a result.

We wish there was some easy villain to point our fingers at. The developer that owns the space has been understanding and flexible. The leaseholder for the Bridge has done as best they can while holding down full-time jobs and staying in step with their listed charitable purpose.

And we are certainly not alone, as the list that precedes this letter suggests.

Since moving into the space, UKAI has presented work in Milan, Berlin, Reykjavik, Seoul, and Bristol. We have delivered workshops in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax. And we will be presenting more work in Iceland and in Taiwan in the fall. We are absurdly busy. And yet this is not enough to allow us to continue.

Anger is perhaps too easily mobilized. For our exit we are leaning into grief. Grief at repeating a long-standing Toronto tradition of interesting spaces disappearing into memory. Grief at the absence left by our exit and by the exits of our partners - particularly those we haven’t gotten to know yet. Grief at a city that retreats to an unrecoverable past when the future threatens. 

Art will persist. The kind of art we get will reflect the tastes of those in power and those able to write a cheque in exchange for a tax receipt and a nice seat at the opera. The hundreds of artists that have worked in and through our space will keep making culture, though they will increasingly be pushed to Instagram and other ‘free’ spaces where their work might be seen.

March 2025 will be an extended goodbye to the Bridge and to UKAI for a lengthy hiatus. We invite you to gather with us on March 29, 2025 to celebrate and connect. Bring your art and set it up where there is space and let’s bring about a cacophonous send-off. We will host a kind of reverse escape room from March 21, 2025 called “We Play in the World They Make”. We will launch our first Goblin Market March 27 and 28 at the Children’s Conservatory at Allan Gardens to explore other models for making a go of it as a creator of beautiful things. We have some other surprises in store as well. Grieving should be noisy and full of inappropriate laughter.

If you want to show your support, we invite you to purchase our publications or our merchandise. We do this work with or without payment, though things are made much easier when support is offered.

Our mission is “culture for what’s coming”. We are not outside these changes looking in, but very much carried along by the same forces and volatility that dominate each and every news cycle. We are facing our shipwreck, and now we must take some time for quiet to assess how we can make a home among these ruins.