Mission

A Unique Site

Art Nature Water City 

 

The Lassonde Art Trail (LAT) is a free, open-air destination for outstanding contemporary art from around the world.

 

Situated on the extraordinary site of a new island in the Toronto harbour archipelago, LAT believes public art enhances wellbeing, guides respectful dialogue and opens our eyes to how we steward the environment.

 

Located in the City of Toronto park called Biidaasige Park, the Art Trail is a series of 15 interconnected public art sites spanning over 4 km of paths that weave through 60 acres of new parkland along Toronto’s waterfront. Themes and relationships explored by art commissions and loans acknowledge the site’s layered histories, geographies, and changing social dynamics. These include Indigenous contexts; the city and lake; civic society and the public realm; waterways past and present; industrial histories; wetland restoration and bioengineering; native plantings and local ecosystems; and the environment and sustainability.

 

The Lassonde Art Trail is at the heart of a massive $1.4b project that rerouted the mouth of the Don River and built flood protection for downtown Toronto. This feat of civil and bioengineering created a new island in the city harbour called Ookwemin Minising. The project established a new river valley with functional wetlands and 60 acres of publicly accessible open space along the riverbanks and inner harbour. It cleaned and restored soils contaminated from past industrialization, and naturally accommodated the effects of flooding and erosion. In the process it re-established aquatic and terrestrial habitat where Indigenous species of plants and animals can thrive.

Interim office

45 Hazelton Avenue, Suite A

Toronto, Ontario

M5R 2E3, Canada

Follow Us

Charitable Registration

No. 724024948RR0001

 

Lassonde Art Trail Foundation

c/o 45 Hazelton Avenue

Suite A, Toronto, Ontario

M5R 2E3