The Bentway’s summer exhibition of free public art, Softer City, explores softness as a means of humanizing our cities, connecting communities, and creating space for collective repair. Bringing together artists, architects, and designers from Toronto, across Canada, and beyond, the exhibition proposes a series of soft encounters with our city, our infrastructure, and one another.

Modern cities are often thought of as hard, fast-paced, and alienating places. Not just because of the concrete and steel that built them, but with social isolation on the rise, cities are becoming increasingly hard places to live.

Public spaces have long modelled ways to soften our cities and make them more approachable, more inviting, and more conducive to forming social connections. Now more than ever, we need to draw learnings from our public spaces and discover new means of softening the barriers that separate us, prioritize community care, and provide the conditions for people to gather, meet, and grow.

How can we reimagine city-building based on new, softer strategies? How can public art and shared spaces contribute to the well-being of neighbourhoods?