Bentway Staging Grounds
On view now
Bentway Staging Grounds is a site of active, environmental learning that continues The Bentway’s creative work along the Gardiner Expressway. Visitors are invited into a living laboratory for urban ecology, with experimental gardens that use rainwater run-off from the highway above to support the growth of flowering plant species.
Coming Soon: Bentway Staging Grounds
August 9, 2023
Opening in September 2023, Bentway Staging Grounds is a temporary public space under the Gardiner Expressway at Dan Leckie Way that explores new ways to leverage stormwater runoff from the highway to support urban ecology.
Boom Buddies honour Pride
June 22, 2023
Head over to York St and Lakeshore Blvd under the Gardiner to see one of our Waterfront ReConnect Boom Town Buddies with a fabulous new rainbow look for Pride!
Waterfront Reconnect projects open at York St and Simcoe St
June 1, 2023
Temporary street-level interventions add light, colour and enhanced waterfront connectivity at York and Simcoe Streets. Following a national design competition completed in early 2022, today The Bentway announced the opening of two projects that explore new strategies for improved intersections under the Gardiner Expressway. Waterfront ReConnect continues the organization’s creative work to re-imagine the Gardiner […]
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.
Waterfront ReConnect: Pixel Story
On view now
Pixel Story references the multitude of vantages, scales, speeds, and distances at which to view the Expressway, enticing passersby to move forward towards the waterfront, or pause to reflect on its diverse stories.
Waterfront ReConnect: Boom Town
On view now
Boom Town employs vibrant colour, playful characters, and environmental lighting to enliven the York Street intersection, improving safety and accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists.
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.
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.
Memory Work
May 5, 2023
Memory Work is a mural made up of twelve embellished portraits of revolutionary women and non-binary figures from a future Toronto. Initiated by 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.
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.