Softer City Curators’ Tour: May 25
Be the first to explore our Softer City outdoor exhibition by joining a curators’ tour on opening weekend. Learn about the inspiration behind the exhibition theme and come see how Softer City invites artists, architects, and designers to explore new approaches to social connection and soft encounters in our city.
Softer City Curators’ Tour: May 26
Be the first to explore our Softer City outdoor exhibition by joining a curators’ tour on opening weekend. Learn about the inspiration behind the exhibition theme and come see how Softer City invites artists, architects, and designers to explore new approaches to social connection and soft encounters in our city.
Walking:Holding
May 25, 2024 to May 26, 2024
Walking:Holding is a unique, experiential performance that invites audience members (one at a time) on a guided walk through the neighbourhood, where they encounter and hold hands with a series of people along the way. Rosana Cade’s project embraces social connections between strangers, illuminating how identity, intimacy, hypervisibility, and vulnerability intersect in public space.
Softer City Curators’ Tours
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Be the first to explore our Softer City outdoor exhibition by joining a curators’ tour on opening weekend. Learn about the inspiration behind the exhibition theme and come see how Softer City invites artists, architects, and designers to explore new approaches to social connection and soft encounters in our city.
Summer Opening Night Party (2024)
A fabulous party to kick-off summer in the city! Mix, mingle, and dance under the Gardiner as The Bentway’s new public art exhibition Softer City officially opened. The evening culminated with a massive collective performance led by local queer line dancing icons, SPURS.
Tracings
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How can we show care for our infrastructure and, by extension, for each other? Nico Williams applied “patches” (made with woven fabric and jingle cones) to the Gardiner’s concrete columns, incorporating traditional Indigenous regalia designs. These soft interventions add joy, beauty, and a caring touch to the Expressway.
Holding Space
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Nnenna Okore uses scaffolding, pipe, and Ankara – a versatile and iconic African fabric that embodies a deep sense of identity and community – to create a new space for human connection. Vibrant fabric hues weave around the Gardiner’s hard edges, softening the concrete infrastructure.
Soft Fits
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Few public spaces are designed with teenagers in mind. For Soft Fits, Brooklyn’s WIP Collaborative worked with local youth to create a playful lounge-scape under the trees at the edge of The Bentway Studio Terrace facing Canoe Landing Park.
Wind Ensemble
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Brightly coloured windsocks dance overhead while windchimes echo throughout, picking up the movement of the wind and the energy of the city. Toronto-based artist Heather Nicol invites you to add your voice to this chorus, to pause and connect to your surroundings and one another.
Perspective Alignment
On view now
Chloë Bass’ sculptural benches, formed from solid Ontario rock and engraved with poetic reflections, welcome visitors to sit alongside a friend (or stranger) and consider the difficult but necessary work of softening our perspectives towards one another through empathy and care.
A Public (Art) Notice
October 16, 2023
Synthetic Collective and Centre for Sustainable Curating, in partnership with The Bentway and Evergreen, are pleased to announce the launch of “A Public (Art) Notice,” a free poster and downloadable guide promoting more environmentally conscious ways to curate, create, and produce public art.
From Steps to Stories Public Opening
Be the first to experience From Steps to Stories, a new high-tech exhibition presented with Autodesk Research. Join us on Friday, November 3 for a free reception as we launch this interactive showcase of cutting-edge space-sensing technology and consider its implications for understanding public space.
From Steps to Stories
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What can cutting-edge sensor technology teach us about the future of public space? This interactive data art installation invites visitors to explore the fascinating connections between human experience and computer vision under the Gardiner Expressway. Presented in collaboration with Autodesk Research, From Steps to Stories reveals how we can achieve a deeper understanding of how public spaces are experienced.
In the News: Five great exhibitions to check out at the CONTACT Photography Festival [Toronto Star]
April 27, 2018
Five great exhibitions to check out at the Contact Photography Festival Murray Whyte, Visual Arts Critic at the Toronto Star, recommends Dana Claxton’s A Forest of Canoes as one of the top five exhibitions to check out at the 2018 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. The embarrassment of riches that is the annual Contact Photography Festival only […]
In the News: Toronto’s Bentway will be a new platform for public art [Globe and Mail]
March 5, 2018
The Globe and Mail MATTHEW HAGUE SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 28, 2018 Ilana Altman is accustomed to working with some of the world’s top design firms and art galleries to make great spaces. Now she’s tasked with persuading Toronto residents to spend their spare time under a freeway. As the director […]
The Bentway gets love from Mercartto
January 30, 2018
Alexa Samuels, Founder and Chief of Mercartto, writes about The Bentway’s Constructions of the Everyday art exhibition. Read an excerpt here and the full piece on their blog. A few weeks after its official launch, The Bentway – Toronto’s newest urban park, under a major downtown highway no less – is thriving. The Bentway is […]