Sun/Shade

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Summer 2025 | May 23 – October 5, 2024

The Bentway’s summer exhibition of free public art brings together artists, designers, and researchers  to explore how new thinking about sun and shade can help cities adapt to rising temperatures and create more comfortable urban spaces.

Throughout the twentieth century, few forces have impacted the shape of North American cities as significantly as the sun. Driven first by public health objectives and later by an insatiable desire for daylight and broad views, urban centres and the spaces they support are largely celebrated for the ways in which they maximize access to light. Over time, unobstructed rays became synonymous with urban progress and yet, as temperatures rise every year, our sun-drenched streets and public spaces are becoming less and less comfortable. Extreme heat events are predicted to rise in the Greater Toronto Area from 20 days per year now to 66 days per year by 2050, leading to increased risk of illnesses and mortality. 

In light of these accelerating thermal changes, there is a need to reexamine the critical relationship between sun and shade. Many cities have long grappled with extreme heat and  recognize the vital and democratizing role that shade plays: it offers shelter and relief; it creates new places to gather safely; and it is an unintended choreographer mapping and remapping cool corridors for safe travel.

Shade is an essential public resource. 

In Toronto, shade’s changing role is palpably felt and seen in spaces below the Gardiner Expressway. Our elevated downtown highway is the city’s largest continuous canopy, casting a shadow over 6.5km in length. This roof provides a welcome cover from intense heat in the warmer seasons and the spaces underneath offer the opportunity for a new type of public space that balances the benefits of sun and shade.  

How can we collaborate with the sun in new ways?
How will shade help to define new spaces for civic life? 

The Bentway’s summer exhibition of public art, Sun/Shade, brings together artists, designers, and researchers from Toronto and beyond to deploy the sun and shade as creative tools, revealing how new thinking about familiar resources can improve urban life. This summer, we invite you under the highway to shine a light on the benefits of shade.

The Sun/Shade exhibition was inspired and informed by the City of Toronto’s Thermal Comfort Guidelines, which are re-shaping the way we plan and build public space. Read more about the guidelines here.

Full Program

  • Second Shade
    Second Shade
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    Echoing both the towering structures of downtown skyscrapers and a forest of trees, Mary Mattingly’s Second Shade combines lush greenery and repurposed construction materials to make a unique 20ft tall urban canopy, showcasing the cooling potential of green roofs, soft landscaping, and responsive architecture.

  • la sombra que te cobija / the shadow that shelters you
    la sombra que te cobija / the shadow that shelters you
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    A geometric pavilion invites you to cross under the Gardiner, casting both a cooling effect and ornate shadow patterns. Edra Soto’s installation references the shade-making façades of working-class Puerto Rican bungalows to create an expansive, sun-filtering threshold, reflecting on the intersection of heat-responsive architecture, place-making, and cultural heritage. 

  • Casting a Net, Casting a Spell
    Casting a Net, Casting a Spell
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    Artist duo Celeste’s majestic, quilted canopy casts welcomed shade down to a seating area below, offering relief from the heat and a space for gathering. Like a suncatcher, Casting a Net, Casting a Spell embraces and harnesses the sun, weaving in archetypes that have surrounded the sun since ancient times. 

  • Declaration of the Understory
    Declaration of the Understory
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    Secwépemc artist Tania Willard approaches the space below the highway as a tree canopy, reminiscent of the “understory” floor of southern Ontario forests, where pockets of shade and sunlight shape unique ecosystems below. In a stunning mixed-media installation, floral motifs, iridescence, and powerful slogans offer a mediation on the power of shade as a lifeforce.

  • Bathed in Strange Light
    Bathed in Strange Light
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    Working in collaboration with the sun’s rhythms, Natalie Hunter’s photographs on the windows of The Bentway Studio (facing Canoe Landing Park) explore how ever-shifting sunlight shapes our experience of public spaces. As the sun moves throughout the day, translucent images cast down a colorful, slow-moving cinema.

  • Seeing Celsius
    Seeing Celsius
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    What happens when we can see heat? By adding thermal-imaging technology to the familiar viewfinder found at scenic lookout points, LeuWebb Projects enables you to see the temperature differences across The Bentway space and the bodies that move through it. It’s a new perspective that will shift how you view urban spaces and the materials…

  • Moving Forest
    Moving Forest
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    A flock of 50 trees in shopping carts playfully travels throughout the city, stopping to create a refreshing shade canopy in usually-sunny spaces. Follow their eight-week journey throughout the city – from The Bentway, to YZD at Downsview, to the Waterfront – enjoying pop-up readings and performances along the way.

  • Sun/Shade Opening Night Party
    Sun/Shade Opening Night Party

    Get ready to feel the heat at the summer’s coolest party! Join The Bentway, Fashion Art Toronto, and Canada’s Drag Race’s Jada Shada Hudson under the Gardiner for a Sunglasses at Night fashion show, celebrating the opening of The Bentway’s latest outdoor art exhibition. Runway shy? Come dance, mingle, and enjoy the show!

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  • Sun/Shade Curators’ Tours
    Sun/Shade Curators’ Tours
    May 24 & 25, 2:00pm-3:30pm. June 19, July 17, August 21, September 18, 6:30pm – 8:00pm.

    Go behind the scenes of our Sun/Shade outdoor art exhibition by joining a curators’ tour with The Bentway’s Programming team. Learn about the inspiration behind the season, the creation of each artwork, and how they fit together. Sun/Shade explores new ways of collaborating with the sun, as well as the importance of shade, in our…

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  • Sand Flight
    Sand Flight
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    Experience the world premiere of Sand Flight, from internationally renowned choreographer Ingri Fiksdal. Eight dancers and a 50-person choir descend on a massive sand dune under the Gardiner Expressway for a powerful performance that speculates on climates-to-come, where shade-worshipping is the new normal.

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supporters

Sun-safety partner

Supported by our seasonal supporters

and The Bentway’s growing family of friends and supporters

With help from project partners at

  •  Indigenous Curatorial Collective / Collectif des commissaires autochtones
  • YZD
  • Toronto Dance Theatre
  • Ontario Arts Council
  • Government of Ontario
  • Save Your Skin Foundation
  • Office for Contemporary Art Norway
  • Manulife