Check out our ongoing and upcoming events and series.
events calendar
Canopy Connections: Summer Wonder with TPL Fort York
Listen to family friendly stories that have been carefully selected to get you thinking about the significance of trees and the principles of shade equity. Enrich your learning through interactive games and activities delivered by Fort York library staff.
Canopy Connections: Sunset Concert with The Taylor Academy
Students from The Taylor Academy – Canada’s leading classical music training program – share their music. Enjoy their showstopping virtuosity under the cover of the Moving Forest canopy and enjoy a beautiful sunset that will sweep you into the weekend.
Moving Forest Parade to Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre
Experience our volunteer-led parade of the Moving Forest urban canopy and welcome the trees as they arrive at their new destination! 50 tree-filled shopping carts will arrive at the Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre to create a shady gathering place for community, conversation, and reflection on the importance of urban nature.
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Canopy Connections: Community Pop Ups with Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre
Join us for this free event in the Moving Forest: Canopy Connections series! Join Waterfront Neighbourhood Centre community members for a vibrant afternoon of activities amongst the tree canopy and gardens, including a scavenger hunt, fitness demonstrations, and steel pans performances. Let’s surround Moving Forest with love and care from our dedicated community and foster […]
Moving Forest Parade to Harbourfront Centre
Experience our volunteer-led parade of the Moving Forest urban canopy and welcome the trees as they arrive at their new destination! 50 tree-filled shopping carts will arrive at the Harbourfront Centre to create a shady gathering place for community, conversation, and reflection on the importance of urban nature.
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Moving Forest @ Harbourfront Centre
See you at the Harbourfront Centre, July 14 to July 20! A flock of 50 trees in shopping carts travels throughout the city, stopping to create a refreshing shade canopy in usually-sunny spaces.
Canopy Connections: Dancing in the Square
Join us for this free event in the Moving Forest: Canopy Connections series! Learn new dance moves and strut your stuff to a live band by the water’s edge and a special edition amongst Moving Forest! From salsa to swing, soca to samba, grab a friend and join us for a fun-filled evening of social […] Sun/Shade Curators’ Tours: July 17
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 urban spaces.
Canopy Connections: Unity Fest
Join us for this free event in the Moving Forest: Canopy Connections series! Moving Forest sets a unique stage for Canada’s own Hip-Hop festival with an all-day line-up of dance battles, live hip-hop performances, a local food vendor marketplace and networking events and vibes for all ages. Learn more. City dwellers have long appreciated trees for […] to
Moving Forest @ The Bentway Skate Trail
See you under our smaller pop up canopy of 10 trees at the Bentway Skate Trail, from July 20 until the end of our summer season! These 10 trees were part of a flock of 50 trees in shopping carts that travelled throughout the city, stopping to create a refreshing shade canopy in usually-sunny spaces.
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Nibwaakaawin: The Balance of Warmth and Coolness
Join artist Natalie King to explore heat-reactive art-making techniques inspired by LeuWebb Projects’ installation Seeing Celsius – thermal-imaging viewfinders that reveal changing temperatures across the Bentway’s site. Led by interdisciplinary artist Natalie King, this workshop invites participants to co-create a collaborative painting using thermochromic (heat-reactive) materials. Rooted in the Anishinaabemowin concept Nibwaakaawin (wisdom/balance), the […]
on view / ongoing
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Fans Can Dance
toFans 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.
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Shore Lines
toToronto-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.
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Net Scape
toSit 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.
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Make the World Go Round
toToronto-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.
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United in Light
toMontreal-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.
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A Persistent Crossing
Due to maintenance Bentway Staging Grounds is closed, we will update when we are able to reopen the site. On view May 9, 2026 to Spring 2027Bentway Staging Grounds hosts the final chapter of its immersive installations, where human silhouettes, native vegetation, and Ontario pollinators invite visitors to reflect on their place within the city. The work blurs boundaries between people, place, and the natural world, revealing the interconnected rhythms of built and living environments.
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Petal and Stone
October 2025 through to 2027A 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.
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Waterfront ReConnect: Boom Town
On view nowBoom Town employs vibrant colour, playful characters, and environmental lighting to enliven the York Street intersection, improving safety and accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists.
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Waterfront ReConnect: Pixel Story
On view nowPixel 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.
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Bentway Staging Grounds
Due to maintenance Bentway Staging Grounds is closed, we will update when we are able to reopen the site.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.
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Memory Work
On display May 1, 2022 onwardsSituated 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…