Inside the Lassonde Art Trail: Toronto's new public art destination

The strip of Toronto waterfront south of the Gardiner Expressway was once desolate. Now it pulses with life.

Last year, Biidaasige Park opened—a lush parkland filled with prairie grass, ponds, and swans. On June 4, the first phase of the Lassonde Art Trail debuted, transforming the same landscape into an open-air gallery designed to attract over a million visitors annually.

The Lassonde Art Trail stretches 4.2 kilometres along interconnected paths and will eventually host 14 sculptures on a rotating basis. The project is named after mining magnate Pierre Lassonde, who donated $25 million to realize the vision. The first seven sculptures are now public; the second wave opens in late July.

November Paynter, the trail's artistic director and chief curator, selected works that blur the line between art and play, inviting visitors to interact rather than simply observe.

**Orange Functional** by Alexandre Arrechea is a basketball net reimagined as a tree. Paynter first encountered the work at an arts centre in upstate New York and immediately imagined Toronto's response. "It was really about tapping into the idea of a work that could be played with," she said. Anyone can bring a ball and take a shot—the sculpture becomes a playground.

**Crown Act** by Nigerian-Canadian artist Oluseye, longlisted for this year's Sobey Art Award, is a low wooden labyrinth made of braids with a cowrie shell at its centre. It references both the Underground Railroad—the escape route enslaved Americans took to Canada for freedom—and the cultural significance of braids in Black identity. Visitors walk through it; the piece meets them at ground level rather than commanding a pedestal.

**Stories of Relics** by British artist Ryan Gander features a yellow alarm clock sitting on a rock. Gander works extensively with time and clocks, and this piece meditates on the layers of history embedded in the waterfront—what was here before, what exists now, what's still arriving.

The trail also features loans from international artists, including British provocateur Tracey Emin, bringing global recognition to a public space that was invisible a year ago.

For Torontonians, the Lassonde Art Trail represents something rare: a major cultural infrastructure project that is free, accessible, and rooted in the community. It transforms a forgotten edge into a destination—not through gentrification or commercialization, but through art that invites rather than excludes.