Exhibitions > Archive

Carleton Curatorial Lab (CCL): Making Radio Space in 1930s Canada

February 27 - May 7, 2017

Looking at the visual and material culture of radio in 1930s Canada, this exhibitions offers a new way to think about a medium closely associated with twentieth-century modernity.

As radio entered homes and became an increasingly important part of Canadian society, it affected not only the soundscape of everyday life but had spatial consequences.

This exhibition focuses on how radio created or altered concepts of space in the 1930s. Expensive consoles and cheaper tabletop models joined furniture in the living room, affecting interior design while providing access to the wider world with the turn of a dial.

The new electronic medium remapped space, simultaneously situating listeners within regions and linking them to far-flung locations. With the development of portable and automobile radios, as well as high-power transmission stations, Canadians could remain connected while travelling through space.

Making Radio Space is part of a larger research project, Seeing, Selling, and Situating Radio in Canada, 1922-1956, led by Anne MacLennan (York University) and Michael Windover (Carleton University).