BEYOND CONCRETE
May 14, 2023
Beyond Concrete brought together artists, architects, botanists, and neighbours to explore the nature of the Gardiner Expressway. In Summer 2023, we re-discovered a uniquely urban ecosystem – where human-made infrastructure intertwines with resilient flora and fauna – at a summer of free artworks, events, and celebrations.
Tools For Care with Renelyn Quinicot: June
Join us in a monthly series to experience The Bentway environment as a space where we can gather to pause, ground, reset and drop into our senses together. Each session we will explore different techniques of getting to know ourselves, what we need, and how to nurture this through mindful different activities and movements.
Tools For Care with Renelyn Quinicot: July
Join us in a monthly series to experience The Bentway environment as a space where we can gather to pause, ground, reset and drop into our senses together. Each session we will explore different techniques of getting to know ourselves, what we need, and how to nurture this through mindful different activities and movements.
Tools For Care with Renelyn Quinicot: August
Join us in a monthly series to experience The Bentway environment as a space where we can gather to pause, ground, reset and drop into our senses together. Each session we will explore different techniques of getting to know ourselves, what we need, and how to nurture this through mindful different activities and movements.
The Art and Science of Lichen: Guided Walk
Join Anishinaabe filmmaker Lisa Jackson for a unique engagement featuring her acclaimed short film Lichen, which has been reimagined as a multi-media installation at The Bentway.
Beyond Concrete Opening Night Party (2023)
Celebrate the launch of Beyond Concrete, and the start of summer, with a party on the Skate Trail. Featuring an energetic performance by the Aliens of Manila! Experience the art while you mix, mingle, and dance!
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.
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.
Tools For Care with Renelyn Quinicot: September
Join us in a monthly series to experience The Bentway environment as a space where we can gather to pause, ground, reset and drop into our senses together. Each session we will explore different techniques of getting to know ourselves, what we need, and how to nurture this through mindful different activities and movements.
Insects of the Bentway with Anne Purvis
Join us for a Butterfly and Bee exploration walk! This workshop starts out at the Multispecies Lounge at the Bentway Studio, and includes games and activities that sharpen our observations to find the best habitat in the neighbourhood.
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.
Eco-Library Pop-up
Thursdays-Saturdays until Sep 18,
A pop-up library at The Bentway Studio (55 Fort York Blvd), facing Canoe Landing Park, offers reading materials and activities for the whole family – curated with the Toronto Public Library Fort York branch, Art Metropole, and other collaborators.
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.
Loop Sessions Toronto: Bentway Sound Art Jam
Join us for a site-specific walk where you’ll learn to make field recordings and use vinyl records to create new soundscapes with Loop Sessions Toronto.
Goldenrod Foraging and Natural Dyeing Workshop with Julia Rose Sutherland
Join Julia Rose Sutherland in collaboration with The Bentway for an immersive and eco-conscious workshop where we’ll take a unique stroll under the Gardiner Expressway, exploring the urban landscape and foraging for native species of goldenrod.
Gardiner Green Pockets and Urban Nature Walk with Toronto Field Naturalists
Join the current president of Toronto Field Naturalists, Zunaid Khan and past president Ellen Schwartzel as we will explore the nature pockets in and around The Bentway.
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.
The Bentway Animal Parade
Join a community parade honouring the resilient urban animals who persist along highways and streets, with special guest Little Amal. Local residents are invited to create their own animal mask or welcome flag celebrating Little Amal’s visit to The Bentway on June 10. Presented with Luminato Festival Toronto, with creations by Red Pepper Spectacle Arts.
The Bentway Block Party (2023)
The Bentway Block Party is back! Join us for our annual signature event with a full program of performances, music, street food and drink, art workshops, summertime vibes, and community celebration. All free, all are welcome.
Walking Workshops
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Participate in walks across the Gardiner corridor paired with hands-on learning experiences such as urban foraging, local flora and fauna identification, and exploring the sights and sounds of the Bentway.
WOODS
Saturday May 27 (performances at 1:30pm and 3:30pm) & Sunday May 28 (performances at 1:30pm and 3:30pm)
A forest of upside-down human bodies grows out of the concrete, set against Toronto’s high-rise horizon. In WOODS, performers’ bodies struggle to maintain their verticality, calling attention to the struggle faced by nature itself: How long can the body resist? How long can our forests survive?
Wellness Workshops
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Join us in a monthly series to experience The Bentway environment as a space where we can gather to pause, ground, reset and drop into our senses together. Each session we will explore different techniques of getting to know ourselves, what we need, and how to nurture this through mindful different activities and movements.
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.