HAPPY PLACE at Harbourfront Centre (245 Queens Quay West). Runs to January 1. $32.50-$39.50. happyplace.me MUSEUM OF ILLUSIONS (132 Front East). 10 am-8 pm, Monday to Sunday. $19.50-$23.50. museumofillusions.ca.
The Happy Place is tucked inside an old red-brick building on Queens Quay West. You can’t miss it: two of those towering inflatable tube figures with cartoony grins flank the front doors, setting the tone for visitors entering this 20,000-square-foot pop-up exhibition: You’re going to have fun here – like it or not.
Open until New Year’s Day, Happy Place features a dozen large-scale installations and exhibits designed for selfies and other photo ops. There’s the confetti dome, a giant chocolate chip cookie sculpture in a room that smells like freshly baked cookies and a nook with circular metal lights that makes you feel like you’re in a Missy Elliott music video. The pièce de résistance is a 20-foot rainbow leading to a massive ball pit.
Over the last couple of years, quirky art-exhibit-cum-selfie-emporiums have popped up all over North America, from the Museum of Ice Cream in San Francisco – known for its infamous sprinkle pool – and Brooklyn’s Museum of Pizza to the “Rosé Mansion” in Manhattan, where patrons sip rosé whilst strolling through Instagram-worthy rooms.
Earlier this month, the Museum of Illusions also launched in the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood. The permanent exhibition features brain teasers, Magic Eye-style optical illusions and installations like a Yayoi Kusama rip-off mirrored room illuminated by twinkling lights.
Although many of these spaces purport to be genre-bending and part of a larger movement to make cultural institutions more immersive, it’s a trend with a simple mission: come to these funhouses, take a bunch of photos, post on social media, watch the likes roll in, feel happy. Happy Place creator Jared Paul, a Los Angeles-based event producer, insists everyone from grandparents to young kids will have fun at Happy Place. But can the selfie-averse derive joy in a place like this? I decided to find out.
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When you enter Happy Place’s tufted yellow doors, you encounter a pair of 7-foot-tall stilettos covered in thousands of M&Ms. I immediately feel anxious. Knowing I’d be photographed for this article, I’d scoured Instagram beforehand for influencers who had already been here, studying how they contorted their bodies into flattering angles. If I memorize the poses, I’d thought, I might survive.
Alas, I can’t remember any angles for the giant candy heels. “How does this look?” I ask our staff photographer, as I awkwardly lie back onto the shoe, arms crossed like a vampire sleeping in a casket. I strike another pose by stuffing my entire body into the toe of the shoe until just my head sticks out. Unsurprisingly, when the photographer sends me the best photos from the day, none are from the stilettos.
During an interview at Happy Place, Paul and I sit in the canteen overlooking the confetti dome. At the next table, two women take photos of their rainbow-hued grilled cheese sandwich. Paul says he wanted this “multi-sensory” experience to offer a jolt of cheerfulness in challenging times. While Happy Place isn’t going to solve gun violence and climate change, he thinks it can be a salve. “Everywhere you turn, you’re faced with something inherently sad or negative. It was time to do something with the blatant goal to make people happy.”
Part of making people happy is ensuring they look good on camera. An earlier version of the rainbow in L.A. was too wide to fit into most photos, so the Toronto iteration perfectly frames the ball pit. Paul spent a significant amount of time and money properly lighting the space. He studied selfies and adjusted fixtures to get it just right.
The Museum of Illusions isn’t as selfie-obsessed, but there is a large focus on photo ops thanks to an upside-down room and a mirrored space where you appear to be standing at a gravity-defying tilt.
Originally started in Croatia, the museum now has 14 locations worldwide. Marketing exec and curator Michaela Radman calls it an educational experience where visitors can learn about scientific concepts like perspective and balance. She says schools from across the GTA have inquired about field trips.
“It’s a 21st-century museum. People want to touch and be a part of things,” she says. “The AGO is crowdfunding [to purchase] a Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room. That shows you what’s happening. People don’t just want to look at things anymore. They want to be immersed.”
Samuel Engelking
After an hour of taking photos, I get to Happy Place’s cookie room and heave a sigh of relief. There’s only so much you can do with a giant cookie: pretend to take a bite out of it. Despite repeatedly being told to keep my eyes open, my eyes remain halfway shut in most photos, while my mouth is a terrifying gaping hole. I look like King Kong attacking the Empire State Building.
“If you like happiness, confetti, rainbow grilled cheeses, hugs, kisses and flowers, you should like the Happy Place,” Paul had told me. I like all of those things, but I leave utterly exhausted and with a newfound respect for people who take selfies on the regular. During my tour, a young yogi woman had done the circuit gracefully, doing handstands in the confetti dome where, moments before, I’d struggled to dislodge the confetti stuck behind my glasses.
Selfies are an art and a business. It’s why the Museum of Pizza’s three-week run sold out and the Museum of Ice Cream created a clothing line featuring “Vanillionaire” hats and a make-up line with Sephora.
When I ask Paul if he feels uncomfortable commodifying happiness – peak-hour tickets are $39.50 – he shrugs off the suggestion. Candy makes people happy, he says. So do concerts and vacations. But candy is delicious, concerts are an art form and vacations can be enriching cultural experiences, I counter.
“People are moving away from buying material items like cars or TVs and are instead buying experiences,” says Paul. “Did a vacation really happen if you didn’t post about it? For a lot of people, this is the world we live in.”
There is disturbing truth to that. I recently went to Chicago but didn’t post any photos from the trip. My best friend texted to ask if I ended up going. I said yes, confused as to why she’d thought I’d cancel. “Oh, I didn’t see any photos, so I didn’t know if you went,” she replied.
The trend toward immersive art installations isn’t slowing down. In fact, an art and music pop-up is opening this spring in Kensington Market. I don’t judge other people who love selfies – I do too on occasion. But visiting a selfie-designed space and posting the photos feels like being a shill for that space, especially if you use the official hashtags. And you’re paying to shill. Unlike posing in front of a street mural, park or beach, this happy place ain’t free. And unlike Infinity Rooms, which is an art exhibition first, selfie goldmine second, the main purpose of this trend is to take pretty photos.
A few days after visiting Happy Place, the photographer sends me our best photos. Dare I admit it, I look happy. Posing was an awkward experience, but the photos tell a different story. And if I ever post them on Instagram, my followers will never know the full truth anyway.
samanthae@nowtoronto.com | @SamEdwardsTO
