Fractured Histories: Ry Van Der Hout’s "In Broken Light" at the Spadina Museum

In the hallowed, storied corridors of Toronto’s Spadina Museum—an 1866 mansion that serves as a living time capsule of the city’s upper-crust past—a transformation is underway. Through the marriage of industrial destruction and delicate craftsmanship, interdisciplinary artist Ry Van Der Hout is challenging the static nature of historic preservation. Their latest exhibition, In Broken Light, which opened on August 26 and runs through October 18, turns the lens of contemporary art onto the forgotten, the overlooked, and the deeply personal narratives buried within the museum’s white-brick walls.

By utilizing mirrors and stained glass as primary media, Van Der Hout does not merely decorate the space; they interrogate it. The exhibition consists of five site-specific sculptural interventions spread across four floors, each acting as a prismatic aperture that forces viewers to reconcile the house’s aristocratic history with the fragile, human stories of those who occupied its peripheries.

The Philosophy of the Fracture: Main Facts and Artistic Intent

At the core of In Broken Light lies a radical proposition: that the act of shattering is not a conclusion, but a generative beginning. Curated by Adrien Sun Hall, the exhibition serves as a dialogue between the rigid permanence of a 19th-century mansion and the fluidity of queer identity and memory.

"At the heart of In Broken Light is the understanding that shattering isn’t the end of a story—it’s the beginning of a new narrative," explains Sun Hall. The process behind the work is as much a performance as it is a technique. Van Der Hout begins by intentionally destroying mirrors and glass, only to painstakingly reassemble the shards using traditional Tiffany stained-glass soldering methods.

This meticulous labor serves as a powerful metaphor. The resulting fractures—jagged lines of lead and light—act as literal and figurative windows. They allow the artist to embed personal photographs and archival fragments directly into the surface of the sculptures, turning these pieces into "contemporary reliquaries." In this light, the objects become vessels for lives that were once relegated to the footnotes of history, whether those were the domestic staff who kept the house running or the figures of forbidden love that simmered behind closed doors.

A Chronology of Creation: From Research to Realization

The genesis of In Broken Light was a process of deep archival and social immersion. Van Der Hout did not approach the Spadina Museum as a blank canvas, but as a living organism with a pulse. Over the course of their research, the artist engaged in extensive dialogues with a diverse cast of stakeholders: spiritual leaders, descendants of the families who resided in the mansion, local historians, museum guides, and professional conservators.

The chronology of the exhibition’s development reflects this investigative approach:

• Initial Engagement: The artist began by auditing the museum’s existing narratives, looking for "gaps" in the official history of the families who inhabited the estate.
• Material Acquisition: True to the themes of the work, many materials were sourced through serendipity. For example, the sculpture Tiber was constructed from an antique dressing-table mirror holder that Van Der Hout discovered in a dumpster near their studio. The artist describes this as a moment of kismet, feeling "pulled into this story of an object" that signaled they were in the right place at the right time.
• Site-Specific Installation: Throughout the summer of 2026, the artist moved through the house, testing how light interacted with different architectural features. The installation process was designed to respond to the specific energy of each room—from the dark, utilitarian basement to the sun-drenched, unrestored third-floor sanctuary.
• Opening and Public Interaction: Since the August 26 opening, the exhibition has invited the public to experience the house not as a preserved monument, but as a site of active re-interpretation.

Supporting Data: The Sculptural Interventions

The exhibition is anchored by five distinct interventions, each utilizing a different architectural feature of the mansion to tell its story.

The Basement Dig

In the lower level, where the museum maintains a preserved archaeological dig site, Van Der Hout has installed a fractured disco ball. This piece does not merely reflect; it projects. Accompanied by an audio track produced by NASA, the piece casts a mosaic of celestial light across the stone walls and infilled windows. It serves as a bridge between the deep, terrestrial history of the building’s foundation and the infinite, scientific vastness of the cosmos, suggesting that the ground beneath our feet holds stories beyond human reckoning.

The Mirror of the Domestic Staff

The most ambitious work, Open Wing Death, is a 12-foot-high ovoid geodesic dome located on the third floor. This space was originally added in 1913 as a sunroom for a family member suffering from tuberculosis, but it later became the living quarters for the domestic staff. By dedicating this monumental, mirrored structure to the workers, Van Der Hout forces a confrontation with the class structures inherent in the architecture. As visitors peer into the dome, they see themselves fragmented—a momentary, unsettling loss of identity that encourages empathy for those whose labor maintained the mansion’s façade.

The Reliquary of Tiber

Upstairs, the piece titled Tiber incorporates photographs of a historical interpreter at the museum, printed directly onto shattered and reassembled glass. It is a haunting juxtaposition: the person tasked with explaining the history of the house is now physically woven into the very structure of the building’s new artistic narrative.

Official Perspectives and Curatorial Vision

The curatorial framing provided by Adrien Sun Hall is essential to understanding the weight of the exhibition. By defining the sculptures as "reliquaries," the exhibition elevates them from decorative art to objects of reverence.

The museum’s role in this project is equally noteworthy. By allowing an artist to "break" the environment—even metaphorically—the Spadina Museum is participating in a broader trend among heritage institutions to invite artists to challenge the "official" version of history. This collaboration suggests that museums are shifting from repositories of static objects to sites of active, sometimes uncomfortable, inquiry.

In the words of the artist, the process of reassembling the broken is an act of reclaiming: "It felt like I got pulled into this story of an object guiding you to tell you that you are in the right place." This sentiment echoes through the halls, where the sound of the visitor’s own footsteps becomes part of the atmosphere of the installation.

Implications: The Future of Historic Preservation

The implications of In Broken Light extend far beyond the walls of the Spadina Museum. As Canadian cities grapple with the ethics of heritage preservation, Van Der Hout’s work suggests a new way forward. Rather than freezing buildings in a singular moment of the past, we might instead treat them as layers of time that can be accessed and altered.

Redefining the "Museum Piece"

Traditionally, museums are places where things are kept pristine. By introducing "shattered" objects, Van Der Hout challenges the viewer to find value in the damaged, the repaired, and the imperfect. This mirrors current cultural shifts toward inclusivity, where the "cracks" in our societal narratives—stories of queer history, labor struggles, and marginalized voices—are finally being recognized as essential components of the whole.

Architecture as a Mirror

The most profound implication of the exhibition is the role of the viewer. Because the primary medium is mirrored glass, the visitor is forced to occupy the space of the artwork. You cannot look at Open Wing Death or The Shattering without seeing your own reflection, often distorted or multiplied. This effectively breaks the fourth wall of the museum experience. The visitor is no longer an observer of history; they are a participant in it.

As we move toward the exhibition’s closing date of October 18, the legacy of In Broken Light serves as a poignant reminder that history is never truly settled. It is a collection of fragments—some lost, some found, and some painstakingly soldered back together.

For those who visit, the experience is designed to be transformative. In the words of the artist, "shattering is not the end." As we walk through the halls of the Spadina Museum, we are reminded that our own identities, much like the sculptures, are constantly in a state of becoming—shaped by the light we catch, the history we inherit, and the way we choose to hold our own pieces together.

In Broken Light is on view at the Spadina Museum in Toronto until October 18. Visitors are encouraged to engage with the museum’s docents to fully understand the intersection of the mansion’s specific family lore and Van Der Hout’s sculptural interventions.