Play Public
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As insatiable and compulsive collectors of found photographs and keen observers of sociological patterns, both Dutch artist and designer Erik Kessels and French multimedia artist Thomas Mailaender take the absurd and ridiculous very seriously. Joining forces for this collaborative project, they draw from the photographic archives of the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) to activate their constructed urban playscape.
Dream Street
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Welcome to Dream Street! Use the different backdrops to create and record your own stories using #playinginpublic. From the urban forest to the local store, there are many places to explore.
Play Path
Summer 2021
You’re invited to play your city!
Walk Walk Dance
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If COVID-19 has proven anything, it’s that cities need to adapt and change. This past year cities across the world have moved quickly to prototype new ways to experience and explore the city during a global health crisis. They’ve become more pedestrian and bike-friendly, embraced the use and creation of outdoor public spaces, and offered safe moments of fun and delight.
Playing in Public
August 31, 2026
Playing in Public is a neighbourhood exhibition that explores the history and future of play, and its role in shaping decisions about public space. A wide variety of artists, educators, technologists, planners, and community organizers have created works that address questions like:
STREET
August 31, 2026
This summer, The Bentway invites you to see the streets of Toronto anew.
Double Dribble
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Through the illogical use of basketball motifs, Toronto artist Esmaa Mohamoud transforms The Bentway into a surreal basketball court. Double Dribble is comprised of basketball nets of varying diameters — from half the size, to 3X the size of a standard net — and court lines running dysfunctionally throughout The Bentway site. Nets are installed at heights impossible for a human to reach, as well as low enough for a toddler.
Caribbean Sea
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Robin Van Lear (Cleveland, Ohio) is a celebrated visual and performing artist and designer, and member of the Moko Jumbie Mas Camp team. Van Lear is known for creating spectacular public parades featuring costumed stilt-walkers, giant puppets, masquerade, and a fusion of international Carnival art practices.
Nightwalks with Teenagers
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Mammalian Diving Reflex, along with a group of local teens, invites you to ‘walk on the wild side’ after sundown, and to experience the streets, alleys, and secret urban spaces around The Bentway from their point of view.
And With
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And With (as dreamed up by Germaine Liu) is a sound walk that invites audiences and passersby to experience the sounds and textures of The Bentway, the streets nearby, and the rumbling urban artery above like never before.
Weeping Concrete
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In a growing city such as Toronto, scaffolds are a ubiquitous feature of the urban environment. WEEPING CONCRETE is a site-specific project for a trio of performers across two towering scaffolds; asking us to reflect on the streets as we know them and imagine what they might be.
The Street Summit
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On May 27th & 28th, 2022, The Bentway’s season kicked-off with The Street Summit, a two-day event hosted at The Bentway’s Strachan Gate that challenged traditional understandings of city streets and asked how we can create a more inclusive, equitable, and joyful public realm.
Moko Jumbie Street Furniture
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The Moko Jumbie theatre and seating designs, designed for the Mas Camp, are inspired by the mathematical shape vesica piscis otherwise known as mandorla (pointed oval), which consists of two intersecting congruent circles.
Moko Jumbie Parade
Join Michael Lee Poy, the Moko Jumbie Mas Camp artists, camp participants, and their families for a jubilant community Carnival parade centering balance, regalia, joy, and emancipation – traveling along the sidewalk around Canoe Landing Park.
Moko Jumbie Shibori & Direct Dyeing Workshop
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Want to learn how to transform fabric with the art of Shibori dyeing or direct dyeing?
Moko Jumbie Mas Camp
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Since its earliest known historical appearance in 1791 in St. Vincent, the masquerade (mas) character known as Moko Jumbie has enchanted and frightened people throughout the Caribbean and its diasporas. With a mesmerising spectacle of balance and regalia, the guardian spirit both protects and participates in the Carnival street festivities. As a protector, Moko Jumbie is a reminder that playing mas is rooted in resistance to colonial oppression and Euro-centric religiosity. As a participant, Moko Jumbie is an expression and celebration of emancipation and freedom.
Future Perfect: New By-laws for Civic Spaces
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Future Perfect: New Bylaws for Civic Spaces is a hopeful, positive act of re-configuration. By-laws that regulate behaviours in civic spaces – in this case, Toronto’s Streets and Sidewalks Municipal Code – are cut up word-by-word and meticulously rearranged into a new set of rules for a transitioning world.
a wandering
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A multi-sited audio-visual walking tour is now on exhibition under the Gardiner Expressway.
Weweni Bizindan (Listen Carefully)
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There is a tendency for the noun-dominant English language to perpetuate a view of the street as static, cold, necessary. Most objects in the English-speaking world are effectively dead. Certainly, that can be said of a highway. And, yet, for Anishinaabemowin – a verb-based language that ascribes spirit to rocks and trees among many other animate things – we might consider the built environment to be a relative.
Bodies in Urban Spaces
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Arriving in Toronto for the first time after being performed in more than a hundred cities worldwide, Bodies in Urban Spaces is a moving trail choreographed for a group of local dancers.
PARADE
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Part of the delight of being on the street is not knowing what you’ll encounter next…