Toronto’s shared space

featured programs

Beyond Concrete brings together artists, architects, botanists, and neighbours to explore the nature of the Gardiner Expressway.

May 26 – Sep 24

Join us for a summer of free artworks, events, and celebrations that explore the ways urban nature and the built environment can co-exist, even collaborate.

An intersection under an urban highway is painted blue; maintenance equipment have been converted into bright, friendly characters with "googly eyes" overlooking passers-by

Waterfront ReConnect re-imagines the street-level experience of two under-Gardiner intersections through innovative approaches to lighting, color, and storytelling. The projects (located at York Street and Simcoe Street) showcase how the Expressway can better serve our city as a thriving civic asset – both above and below the deck.

Bentway Staging Grounds is a site of active, environmental learning that continues The Bentway’s creative work along the Gardiner Expressway. Visitors are invited into a living laboratory for urban ecology, with experimental gardens that use rainwater run-off from the highway above to support the growth of flowering plant species.

Oct 14, 2pm – 4pm

Join us for an intro to the features, functions, and possibilities of Bentway Staging Grounds through a free guided tour and foraging walk! Then explore creative ways to collaborate with nature using foraged materials to create artwork inspired by the site and local environment.

what’s on

Large sheets of yellow fabric attached to a tall metal frame blowing in the wind.
Atmospheres

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What can the wind teach us about our city’s infrastructure and our own needs for comfort? Atmospheres manifests this powerful force into a series of soaring soft sculptures, sound, and video that both generates and visualizes environmental data collected under the Gardiner.

Balete Bulate Bituka

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An otherworldly creature germinates at The Bentway, its parasitic tentacles emerging from the history of waste materials used as landfill to create the solid ground where the Gardiner now sits. Woven with bamboo, living plants, and locally-sourced discarded plastics, Leeroy New’s first North American commission presents nature reasserting itself amidst concrete infrastructure.

Bentempus Gardinus: A Long-Exposure Ecological Portrait

May 26 to Sep 24, 2023 – Viewable 24 hours a day

Geometric animal sculptures emerge from the Gardiner, representing species who’ve inhabited this place across time – from prehistoric woolly mammoths to sly modern foxes. Alex Sheriff’s speculative new work uncovers each of their stories and reconsiders our own role within natural history.

4 video screens are displayed inside a black ship container.
Lichen

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Remarkable, powerful, and resilient, “lichen” are ancient and diverse life forms, both an individual and a community. Anishinaabe filmmaker Lisa Jackson re-imagines her acclaimed short film as a multi-media installation and invites us to learn from lichen about being in relation to our environment and one another.

Film image of abstract blue forms displayed on large wooden frame on a grassy patch underneath the Gardiner highway.
Groundcover

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Photographer Genesis Báez co-creates with the soil and stormwater below the Gardiner, burying film underground beneath the highway to absorb the surrounding landscape. Developing and displaying the images at large-scale reveals the reciprocal nature of the Expressway and its ecology. Co-presented with the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

A collection of wooden seats made of wooden frames and birdhouses with steel and rock bases.
Multispecies Lounge

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At The Bentway Studio facing Canoe Landing Park, a new set of public furniture invites interspecies-encounters with urban wildlife. Through UV-painted details, the piece offers glimpses of how birds and insects see beyond the human eye and offers a more-than-human lens through which to experience the urban ecosystem.

The Benchway

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Bentway Public Space Fellow Ella Hough’s Benchway public furniture project starts a conversation about the waste produced by the private construction industry, its impact on our city, and the potential for a circular economy approach instead.

An intersection under an urban highway is painted blue; maintenance equipment have been converted into bright, friendly characters with "googly eyes" overlooking passers-by
Waterfront ReConnect: Boom Town

On view now

Boom Town employs vibrant colour, playful characters, and environmental lighting to enliven the York Street intersection, improving safety and accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists.

Pedestrians explore a colourful wall under an expressway.
Waterfront ReConnect: Pixel Story

On view now

Set to be installed in Summer 2023 (under the Gardiner at Simcoe Street), Pixel Story references the multitude of vantages, scales, speeds, and distances at which to view the Expressway, enticing passersby to move forward towards the waterfront, or pause to reflect on its diverse stories.

The Aliens of Manila

Nuit Blanche, September 23 with performances at 10pm, 11pm, 12am, 1am

A companion to his installation at The Bentway, Leeroy New’s The Aliens of Manila is a set of sculptural costumes made from locally-sourced discarded plastics. At first glance eye-catching and whimsical, the Aliens call attention to experiences of overseas Filipino workers as an essential, yet invisible workforce across the globe.

Shared Space

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Step inside an immersive installation that reuses upcycled plastics to explore the possibilities of inflatable architecture, circular design, and the role waste plays in the larger Gardiner ecosystem. Experience a snapshot of our shared consumer habits transformed in a unique gathering space, with a mesmerizing soundscape by MONEYPHONE.

A New Nature at Bathurst Quay

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During Nuit Blanche, the iconic Canada Malting Silos will be brought to life by a large-scale projection by Mark Dorf that reflects on the changing nature of both the building and the city at large. As this historic property transforms into a new civic and cultural landmark, The Bentway and the City of Toronto have teamed up to demonstrate the creative potential of this unique canvas.

visit

The Bentway is active at multiple sites under and near the Gardiner Expressway:

Getting there

250 Fort York Blvd, under the Gardiner

The Bentway Strachan Gate is situated on the lands of Fort York National Historic Site, at Strachan Ave.

Find at: bents 46-50

By TTC

509 Harbourfront (at Fleet St)
63 Ossington (at East Liberty St)
511 Bathurst (at Fort York Blvd)

Parking

Paid parking available @ Green P lots, located at 250 Fort York Blvd and 800 Fleet Street.

Accessibility

This space is partially accessible to mobility devices. In addition to flat and sloped paved surfaces, a large surface is covered in compacted gravel. Washrooms are accessible to mobility devices. Recommended entry to the site: from the east or the south.

Free wifi

Free wifi is provided by Beanfield. Sign onto “Beanfield1hfree” and get one free hour of wifi at The Bentway.

Getting there

250 Fort York Blvd, under the Gardiner

The Bentway Skate Trail is situated on the lands of Fort York National Historic Site, running from just east of the Fort York Visitors Centre to Bastion St.

Find at: bents 83-89

By TTC

511 Bathurst (at Fort York Blvd)
509 Harbourfront (at Fleet St)

Parking

Paid parking available @ Green P lots, located at 250 Fort York Blvd and 800 Fleet Street.

Accessibility

This space is fully accessible to mobility devices, with flat paved and wooden decked surfaces. 

Free wifi

Free wifi is provided by Beanfield. Sign onto “Beanfield1hfree” and get one free hour of wifi at The Bentway.

Getting there

55 Fort York Blvd

The Bentway Studio is a mixed indoor/outdoor facility that faces into Canoe Landing Park, just west of Spadina Ave.

Find at: north of bent 116

By TTC

510 Spadina (at Bremner Blvd / Fort York Blvd)

Parking

Paid parking available at local InPark and Green P lots, and on local streets (including Dan Leckie Way and Housey St).

Accessibility

This space is fully accessible to mobility devices, with flat surfaces.