Net Scape
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Sit down and relax in Net Scape, a new furniture installation from Toronto-based RAW Work. Created using the elements of the game—soccer balls and goal netting—these fun, interactive pieces create the perfect way to watch the matches with your friends at the Bentway Strachan Gate.
Make the World Go Round
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Toronto-based illustrator and muralist Caitlin Taguibao brings the city to life with Make the World Go Round, a striking signature mural installation that wraps the columns of the Bentway Skate Trail, immersing viewers in the iconic sights and scenes of the Toronto that we know and love. A vibrant tribute to the diversity of experiences that make Toronto great, this newly commissioned mural will offer fans a lasting impression as they leave the festival.
United in Light
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Montreal-based LeMonde Studio presents United in Light, a luminous new installation celebrating the many nations of the FIFA World Cup™. Featuring four largescale, interactive LED-screen flags at the Bentway Skate Trail, the work responds to human touch, transforming as visitors engage. Fans are invited to interact with the installation, celebrating their home teams while reflecting the global spirit of the city.
The Bentway Presents Public Art Programming as part of FIFA Fan Festival™ Toronto for FIFA World Cup 2026™
April 27, 2026
New artworks transform space beneath the Gardiner Expressway into a civic gathering place for art, culture, and global fandom.
FIFA Fan Festival 2026™ Toronto
April 27, 2026
The Bentway is a proud fan of Toronto, and The FIFA Fan Festival™ offers a meaningful moment to ignite civic pride and uplift Toronto as a world within a city. For this global moment, The Bentway’s public art programming embraces fandom in all its forms – celebrating the city’s cultural diversity and shared rituals that unite us.
Fans Can Dance
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Fans Can Dance by Montreal-based studio Daily tous les jours invites you to a collective soccer celebration—part dance party, part game. This interactive installation explores the popular phenomena of soccer players’ goal score celebrations through dances, poses, and gestures. Bring your dancing cleats and join the team for this engaging imitation game at the Bentway Strachan Gate.
Shore Lines
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Toronto-based design firm RAW Work presents Shore Lines, a series of modular, soccer field-inspired furniture welcoming you to connect and rest underneath the Gardiner. Inspired by Toronto’s original shoreline, which the Gardiner Expressway traces, these comfortable benches will appear as one continuous soccer pitch along the Bentway Skate Trail’s southern edge.
مجلس Majles / Sitting Room
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Rooted in archival Persian rug work, the inaugural Step-Up Series commission transforms the West Block staircases and courtyard into a vivid cultural tapestry, one that threads migration, memory, and everyday connection through the local architecture to welcome gathering and mark shared urban space.
Reimagining Life Under the Gardiner: The Bentway Unveils Two New Public Art Works in CityPlace
April 16, 2026
New works by Toronto artists Anahita Akhavan and Stanzie Tooth transform spaces beneath the Gardiner into sites of gathering, reflection, and exchange.
Concrete to Canvas: The transformative power of urban murals
Much more than neighbourhood beautification, mural-making projects have the power to transform urban landscapes. Join The Bentway, The Creative Communities Commons (CCC) at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, artists, and urbanists at a free public talk on November 20, exploring new models for “painting the urban landscape”.
Tips on how to experience A Lake Story
September 19, 2025
On September 27 & 28, audiences are invited to celebrate the shoreline with A Lake Story, created by artist Melissa McGill. Discover more about the project and check out our recommended viewing areas to get ready for the performances!
SOLAR
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A mesmerizing encounter with light transforms the Gardiner into a glowing horizon. Guided by a robotic arm and synchronized beams, SOLAR performs a spectacle of sunset by merging the sun’s rhythms with digital choreography to create an immersive experience of light and motion.
Petal and Stone
October 2025 through to 2027
A 10,000 square-foot mural project inaugurates the Gardiner Wallworks series, transforming this concrete expanse into a poetic tableau of site memory, native flora, and symbolic passage. Inspired by the architecture and ecological communities bridging The Bentway and Exhibition Place, it offers commuters and residents an evocative new lens on their urban landscape.
Memory Work
On display May 1, 2022 onwards
Situated at the western entrance to The Bentway, Memory Work is a mural made up of twelve embellished photographic portraits of revolutionary women and non-binary figures from a future Toronto. Initiated by studio From Later with artist Rajni Perera and Memory Work Collective, this speculative monument imagines a city characterized by collective care and politics that value nurturing over growth.
Resurfacing
On view at Exhibition Place Sep 12 - Dec 4, at The Bentway Skate Trail Dec 21 - Feb 17
Reflecting on a highway undergoing major renewal, Resurfacing layers, tears, weaves, and folds striking images of the Gardiner Expressway’s many transformations over time – including the major repair work currently happening now. Co-presented with (and presented off-site at) Exhibition Place.
Unexpected beauty revealed and remixed alongside the Gardiner’s reconstruction
September 12, 2024
The Bentway and Exhibition Place are proud to co-present Resurfacing, a new public artwork by Jessica Thalmann, opening September 12, 2024.
The Space of Belonging
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On the occasion of Nuit Blanche 2024, The Bentway renews the monumental Staging Grounds scaffolding towers with a new work by Andrea Heimer that explores urban loneliness and the actions we can take as a city to move closer to one another.
Sky Mirage
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Aaron Jones’ Sky Mirage is an inflatable airborne mirror that offers viewers a space in the sky to see themselves and each other, creating an entry point for explorations about floating, inflation, and aviation.
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.
sound field: nearshore
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Nearshore was a one hour long multi-channel spatialized sound installation created by Anne Bourne as a “soundfield” that accompanied a sculptural installation by Striped Canary.
The Gateway
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A colourful procession of woven arches stretch across The Bentway’s Skate Trail, bringing the northern lights into the city. Yi Zhou and Carlos Portillo’s installation The Gateway accentuates the monumental architecture of the Gardiner with vibrant hues of green, blue, violet, and magenta.