Resurfacing.

Co-commissioned by The Bentway and Exhibition Place

September 12 - November 1, 2024

Exhibition Loop TTC fencing, 281 Manitoba Drive, Toronto, Ontario

Reflecting on a highway undergoing major renewal, ‘Resurfacing’ layers, tears, weaves, and folds striking images of the Gardiner Expressway’s many transformations over time – including the major repair work currently happening now. Co-presented with (and presented off-site at) Exhibition Place. 

Resurfacing 

1. Applying a new coating on or re-forming (a road, surface, object, or material)  

2. Rising to the surface, or reappearing after a long absence (memory and histories) 

The Gardiner Expressway was built in the 1950s and 60’s to connect the growing city by car. At the time, the “super highway” was considered a marvel of progressive infrastructure, and yet its construction required that much in its path was dismantled or reconceived. The building of the Expressway transformed the shape of the city, and as the years went on, the city, in turn, transformed around it. 

Seventy years later, the Gardiner structure is in need of care and repair. The City of Toronto has embarked in a once-in-a-generation effort to rehabilitate the mid-century Expressway and ensure it remains in good working order from end to end. As such, Torontonians have a front row seat to the Gardiner’s ongoing evolution and its renewed place in the downtown core.  

Toronto artist Jessica Thalmann’s new work Resurfacing collages archival images of the past century and present-day photography to explore these many transformations to the Gardiner over time, as well as to spaces such as Exhibition Place and The Bentway, which run along its length. Through gestures of tearing, crumpling, and ripping images, Thalmann acknowledges the various ways these sites along the Gardiner have been activated, dismantled, and rebuilt alongside the structure itself, while acts of folding, layering, and weaving transform and reimagine the highway as a multi-use, supportive framework for public spaces, pedestrian pathways, bike lanes, and mass transit to keep our neighbourhoods connected and enlivened. Blending colourful abstraction and rarely seen historical imagery, Thalmann resurfaces the unexpected beauty and memory held by the concrete and rebar, reminding us that the Gardiner, like our city, needs to be maintained, but, in doing so, can also be reconfigured and reimagined.