Carleton xDX Collection

The “xDX collection” comes from the Design Exchange (DX) in Toronto, which deaccessioned its entire collection of design objects and archives in 2019 to the Royal Ontario Museum, the Canadian Museum of History, the Archives of Ontario, York University, and Carleton University. The xDX collection is a valuable historical resource that documents postwar Canadian industrial design. As an interdisciplinary teaching collection used primarily in the School for Studies in Art and Culture and the School of Industrial Design, the artefacts can be shown and handled, allowing for a hands-on teaching and learning experience. The roughly 180 artefacts of the collection range widely in type, from domestic technologies, housewares, and electronics to safety equipment, prototypes, and icons of Canadian furniture design.

Featured Student Work

“The TEA” Behind a Toastess Kettle: A Minecraft Adventure in Design History by Sarah Mihychuk

This project utilizes the Minecraft platform, and its culture of creation, as a portal into Canadian design history. Centred on a colourful plastic kettle by Toastess, it explores how everyday objects can hold surprisingly rich cultural lives through playful digital exploration.

The Minecraft experience was created as part of Sarah Mihychuk’s final master’s project in Art and Architectural History, with a specialization in Digital Humanities.

The map is currently available to the public to download at: https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/the-tea-behind-a-toastess-kettle-a-minecraft-adventure-in-design-history/

“Two Sides, Two Stories: Medicine Hat Potteries’ Salad Plate” by Teresa Keuleman

This project uses Medicine Hat Potteries’ criss-cross design salad plate to explore two intersecting narratives within Canadian design history: the rise of industrial ceramic production in Canada and the displacement of Indigenous communities tied to the expansion of this industry. By placing these narratives in conversation, the exhibit examines how everyday objects reveal histories of production, land, and colonialism.

This exhibit was created by Teresa Keuleman, a 4th year History and Theory of Architecture student, for the xDX Project.