Between Waters and Worlds: How the Toronto Biennial Reimagined Canada's Largest City

On a crisp autumn evening in 2019, a crowd gathered along Toronto's industrial waterfront as Ethiopian artist Aschalew Wagshum Endalamaw set fire to a massive sculpture of discarded fishing nets, illuminating the harbor with haunting amber light. This moment—both ceremonial and elegiac—marked not just the birth of Canada's most ambitious contemporary art exhibition, but the beginning of a profound reconsideration of Toronto's relationship to its waters, its histories, and its diverse communities.

The Toronto Biennial of Art emerged in a global landscape already crowded with hundreds of biennials, yet quickly established a distinctive identity through its deep engagement with place. Where many international biennials function as interchangeable showcases for a rotating cast of art-world stars, Toronto's biennial took the bold approach of starting with the land itself—specifically the shoreline of Lake Ontario, which has witnessed centuries of Indigenous presence, colonial violence, industrial development, and environmental transformation.

"The fundamental question we asked was not 'what kind of biennial does Toronto need?' but rather 'what might a biennial make possible in Toronto?'" explains Candice Hopkins, who co-curated the inaugural edition with Tairone Bastien. Hopkins, a member of the Carcross/Tagish First Nation, brought a perspective informed by Indigenous knowledge systems that would become central to the biennial's ethos. "We began by acknowledging that we were working on Indigenous land that had never been ceded, and that any meaningful engagement with this place needed to start from that understanding."

This acknowledgment was not merely symbolic. The curatorial framework titled "The Shoreline Dilemma" directly engaged with Toronto's complicated relationship to Lake Ontario—a body of water that has been variously treated as a resource to exploit, an obstacle to overcome, a border to defend, and a dumping ground for industrial waste. By focusing on the shoreline as a liminal space of encounter and conflict, the biennial created a conceptual thread that could connect diverse artistic practices while remaining grounded in specific local contexts.

The exhibition model itself broke with conventional biennial formats. Rather than concentrating artworks in a central pavilion or museum, the Toronto Biennial dispersed projects across multiple sites spanning the city's 46-kilometer waterfront, from the repurposed industrial spaces of the Port Lands to the Small Arms Inspection Building in neighboring Mississauga. This distributed approach not only reflected the geographic reality of Toronto's sprawling urbanscape but invited audiences to experience the city anew through artistic interventions.

Perhaps most importantly, the biennial emerged not as a top-down imposition of international art-world trends, but through sustained dialogue with Toronto's communities. "Long before the first exhibition opened, we were building relationships," notes Ilana Shamoon, who joined as Director of Programs in 2018. "Artists spent time in residence, local organizations became collaborators rather than simply venues, and educational programs were developed with community input. We were creating an infrastructure for art-making and art-experiencing that would continue between biennial editions."

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a reimagining of the second edition, originally planned for 2021 but delayed until 2022. Yet even this disruption became an opportunity for deepening the biennial's approach. "What Water Knows, The Land Remembers" expanded the geographic scope inland along Toronto's ravine systems and waterways while continuing to center Indigenous knowledge. The curatorial team, again led by Hopkins and Bastien, developed strategies for intimate engagement despite health restrictions, including small-group experiences, outdoor installations, and digital extensions.

By the time the third edition opened in September 2024 under the title "Precarious Joys," the Toronto Biennial had established itself as a distinctive voice in the global conversation about art's relationship to social change. Curators Dominique Fontaine and Miguel A. López assembled a program responding to the turbulent political climate while emphasizing art's capacity for healing, celebration, and radical imagination.

For New York-based artist Sable Elyse Smith, whose multimedia installation at the 2024 edition examined carceral systems and their impact on communities of color, the Toronto Biennial offered a rare opportunity for sustained engagement. "What made this experience different from other biennials was the depth of contextual support," Smith explains. "The curators didn't just drop artists into a space—they facilitated meaningful connections with local communities and histories. My work could be in conversation not just with other artworks but with the lived realities of Toronto's neighborhoods."

Beyond the exhibitions themselves, the Toronto Biennial has pioneered innovative approaches to arts education and public engagement. The Mobile Arts Curriculum (MAC), a collection of pedagogical resources developed by artists for community use, has become a model for other institutions seeking to democratize art education. Meanwhile, the biennial's fellowship programs have created pathways for emerging curators and arts workers from underrepresented backgrounds.

As the Toronto Biennial prepares for its fourth edition in 2026, its influence extends far beyond the art world. The exhibition has catalyzed new thinking about urban development along Toronto's waterfront, informed environmental policy discussions, and strengthened Indigenous cultural sovereignty initiatives. What began as an ambitious art event has evolved into a platform for civic reimagining—demonstrating how contemporary art can function not merely as cultural capital but as a tool for collective transformation.

In a global context where biennials often function as instruments of city branding or cultural tourism, Toronto has shown that a different model is possible: one that prioritizes ethical relationships to land and community, that makes space for marginalized voices, and that understands art not as a luxury commodity but as essential infrastructure for imagining more just and sustainable futures. Between the waters of Lake Ontario and the diverse worlds of Canada's largest city, the Toronto Biennial continues to cultivate new possibilities for what art can be and do.