Sun & Shade take centre stage at The Bentway this summer
April 14, 2025
The Bentway’s summer 2025 programming explores sun as a creative collaborator, shade as a new essential resource, and brings back visitor-favourites like roller skating.
Sand Flight
to
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.
Moving Forest
to
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.
Seeing Celsius
to
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 that shape them.
Bathed in Strange Light
to
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.
Declaration of the Understory
to
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.
Casting a Net, Casting a Spell
to
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.
la sombra que te cobija / the shadow that shelters you
to
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.
Second Shade
to
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.
Walking Holding: Portrait Series
to
What happens when we open our hands to each other in public? Toronto photographer Kirk Lisaj captured portraits of the participant pairings in Walking:Holding, in moments of softness and vulnerability.
We Are Here
to
We Are Here is a mural project by HeART Lab, with art by Amanda Lederle. In a time of increasing social isolation in Toronto, the viewer is invited to think about public space and the ways that it can help to support connections to other people.
Walking:Holding: May 26
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.
Walking:Holding: May 25
May 25, 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.
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.
Tracings
to
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
to
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
to
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
to
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.