RedBall down at Harbourfront

That RedBall is having a great time exploring Toronto, he squeezed into a tight space, like always, in Harbour Square Park West and is enjoying the sun and taking a break to just hang. The ball started its Toronto run on June 3rd at the entrance to Old City Hall and will finish on June 7, 2026 in Regent Park. If he had found his way down to Sugar Beach he might have been reborn as a giant beach ball.

The round, red art installation travels the world and is in our fair city as part of Luminato Festival.

From the Festival's website, "This is RedBall Toronto by artist Kurt Perschke. Having travelled to more than 40 cities across six continents, RedBall Project has yet to roam the same streets twice. Until now. As we celebrate Luminato’s 20th anniversary and RedBall Project’s 25th anniversary, we welcome the project back to transform the streets and public spaces of Toronto, turning everyday experiences into moments of surprise and playfulness."

June 3 - Old City Hall 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM
June 4 - TMU Student Learning Centre 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM
June 5 - St. Lawrence Market North 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM
June 5 - Meridian Hall 4:00 PM - 8:00 PM
June 6 - Harbour Square Park West 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM
June 7 - Regent Park Aquatic Centre 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM

RedBall Toronto and Luminato Festival 2026

June in Toronto is full of art, beauty and PRIDE. Luminato Festival brings art to buildings and streets with a number of installations, film, dance, music and much, much more on their 20th anniversary.

From their website, "Luminato Festival transforms the people, places, and possibilities of Toronto with extraordinary art experiences. Every June we present bold, playful, and of the moment art for all to enjoy. Distinctly Toronto, proudly Canadian and totally Global, we welcome the world to explore our streets, stages and stories. Encounter our city like never before."

I personally love free art and events so I am looking forward to three installations and a Circus! The big, red ball - for some reason known as RedBall, Anthems of Colour, Pyramid Fields and the circus - Camion d’Intervention Artistique - CIART. In addition to this small sample the festival calendar is full of events and attractions, so go crazy and find your favourites.

RedBall was last in Toronto in 2009 (see one of my posts here) and is returning for five days from June 3 to June 7. I love RedBall, much like I like the giant rubber ducky from the Waterfront Festival, and I am glad that RedBall by Kurt Perschke is back for Luminato 2026. "The iconic RedBall appears somewhere in the city. Each day it appears in a new location—wedged between buildings, perched on staircases, or tucked into alleyways. Whether people follow the ball’s journey or encounter it by chance, each interaction is unique and special."

RedBall Toronto 2026 Schedule
Wednesday, June 3 – Sunday, June 7, 2026

June 3 - Old City Hall 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM
June 4 - TMU Student Learning Centre 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM
June 5 - St. Lawrence Market North 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM
June 5 - Meridian Hall 4:00 PM - 8:00 PM
June 6 - Harbour Square Park West 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM
June 7 - Regent Park Aquatic Centre 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM

Pyramid Fields by Cyril Lancelin is another installation using "surreal scultpures" that glow at night. "Drawing on the pyramid’s long-standing symbolism of stability and balance, the work reimagines the form as soft, temporary, and immersive—inviting audiences to step inside these storey-high grid inspired structures. The installations are positioned next to the modernist lines of the TD Centre, designed by Mies van der Rohe, and Eberhardt Zeidler's CF Toronto Eaton Centre, creating a striking contrast between the brilliantly coloured pyramids and the surrounding dark steel-and-glass architecture."

Anthems to Colour by artist Liz West will appear in three buildings in the downtown core. The sculptures are colourful surfaces that work with light, changing with the location of the sun. "Across three Brookfield Properties locations in downtown Toronto, British artist Liz West creates sculptural works using coloured acrylic, mirrored surfaces, and refracted light. Designed to respond to the movement of the sun, the installations shift throughout the day: grids of coloured panels glow against glass facades, mirrored elements reflect and multiply surrounding architecture, and translucent walls scatter prismatic colour into the space around them."

Brookfield Place

Bay Adelaide Centre courtyard

The free circus comes to town and will appear in Sankofa Square on Friday, June 12 followed by a move to Harbourfront Centre from Saturday, June 13 to Sunday, June 14. "Camion d’Intervention Artistique - CIART is a unique immersive show presented on a real fire truck converted into a vertical stage. Led by colourful characters, the project combines aerial acrobatics, physical theatre, music, and monumental scenography. Created with collaborators from Cirque du Soleil, CIART offers powerful and accessible dramaturgy designed to bring all audiences together. Each performance transforms public spaces into spectacular worlds where imagination reigns supreme."

@jmhcet #redball is back in #Toronto for #luminato2026. #redballtoronto ♬ Let Me Entertain You - Robbie Williams

@jmhcet #pyramidfields #artinstallation for #luminato 2026. #Toronto ♬ Crumblin' Down - John Mellencamp

Luminato 2025 Rainbow Dreams in Brookfield Place

A bright, colourful art installation is in Toronto's Brookfield Place, part of the Luminato Festival but continuing after the fest has finished for 2025. Rainbow Dreams is from artist Hiromi Tango and it did include a Rainbow Wheel which is now in First Canadian Place until July 11, then will move to Bay Adelaide Centre from July 14-25.

From Luminato, "Internationally acclaimed artist Hiromi Tango brings her transformative vision to Toronto for the first time in North America. Drawing from her extensive body of work, these environments feature designs uniquely inspired by Toronto's striking glass towers and dynamic energy, offering spaces of color, playfulness, and mindfulness. In collaboration with neuroscientist Dr. Emma Burrows, Tango transforms the rainbow into more than just a symbol—it becomes a practice, nurturing the most valuable space we own: the one square foot between our ears."

Rainbow Wheel is a large, human sized hamster wheel made for spinning, "Step into Wheel, where movement becomes meditation. As your motion sets a spinning rainbow in motion, discover how physical activity can create moments of presence and clarity."

Evanescent now in Brookfield Place

The long hall in Brookfield Place is now the temporary home to the Evanescent art installation. The big, shiny balls are nestled in the Allen Lambert Galleria, on display as part of the Luminato Art Festival.

Putting the installation together

Previously installed in the garden outside of Brookfield Place, it fits in nicely in the long, glass and steel arched space home to many large scale art pieces in the past. Evanescent should probably be on site until the end of July 2024.

From Brookfield Properties website, "Atelier Sisu is a Sydney based design studio led by award winning artists Renzo B. Larriviere and Zara Pasfield. The pair work with a multi-disciplinary team to create experiential environments, installations and sculptures. Their direction of work sits between the fields of art and architecture (art-chitecture), with particular focus in the realm of public art. Their work endeavours to be visually engaging and intellectually elegant in nature. This immersive piece of ‘art-chitecture’ appeals to our universal playfulness and childlike wonder. Evanescent is about living fully in the moment and not taking life, in all its beauty, for granted. This large-scale public artwork is Instagram-worthy, yet its magical message might just encourage you to put your phone aside."

Luminato Festival continues Evanescent installation

Bright, shiny balls, shimmering in the sun are at Bay-Adelaide Centre, Brookfield Place and First Canadian Place until July 30, 2024. The shiny balls are an art installation by artist Atelier Sisu and this is phase two of the 2024 Luminato Festival display.

In the courtyard of Brookfield Place along Front Street

Arnell Plaza at Bay Adelaide Centre

Redpath Waterfront Trail 2021 and #ArtWorxTO

After one year the Redpath Waterfront Festival returns as the Redpath Waterfront Trail on from September 17 to October 3, 2021 as a socially distanced trail along the harbourfront. The festival is a mixture of art installations, promotions and virtual or augmented reality stops.

“After such a difficult time, we are very excited to bring this safe and unique trail to Toronto’s waterfront this September. We look forward to providing a fun experience that we hope will increase foot traffic and economic impact to this amazing area of our city,” says Lea Parrell, co-producer of the Redpath Waterfront Trail.

The route leads along Queens Quay from Lower Sherbourne to Lower Spadina. You can scan the AR by scanning the AR codes on the way markers and find the big rubber duckie or a whale swim in the sky.

NBII DODEM (WATER CLANS) mural by Anishinaabe artist Que Rock

OLAMINA which is part of BSAM Canada Earthseeds

I admired the concept for the pile of bison heads in Ontario Square at Harbourfront Centre, part of the 'Built on Genocide' art installation by Indigenous artist Jay Soule / CHIPPEWAR, part of ArtWorxTO and the Luminato Festival on site until October 24, 2021, pictured at top and below.

From Luminato's website "Built on Genocide is a large-scale installation by multidisciplinary Indigenous artist Jay Soule | CHIPPEWAR, reflecting the historical events and colonial policies throughout Canada’s history that have deliberately undermined and destroyed Indigenous livelihoods. The work is influenced by the mass genocide of the buffalo as a result of the colonial railway expansion. The buffalo decimation is an underacknowledged but foundational aspect of “Canadian” history, with consequences that persist today. Built on Genocide will address the direct correlation between the genocide of the buffalo and the genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada."

Luminato House of Mirrors

Over 55 tonnes of steel and mirrored glass combined into a giant, open air maze at Harbourfront Centre as part of Luminato 2019. You can reflect upon yourself and others while wandering the mirrored installation searching for the exit which should take about a half hour at a cost of $10 a person (kids under 5 free). Tickets are only available on site.

This is the North American debut of the traveling, mirrored attraction from creators Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney. From Luminato "Optical illusion meets vanity in this house-sized kaleidoscope where reflections are fragmented: shadow, ghost, stranger, or is it just you? Nothing is quite what it seems as you stumble through thousands of bewildering reflections. Seeing is believing ... or is it?"

It is confusing with many dead-end paths, bypasses and mirrors that make it difficult to to traverse. A second to last doorway leads to a large, triangular room with mirrors around the edges, then a final door leads to the outside.

Luminato 2017

The Toronto festival of arts starts tonight and the action is free at David Peacut Square with the opening event Tributaries and the pop-up venue The Famous Spiegeltent. The festival runs from June 14 to June 25.

Tributaries "pays tribute to the immeasurable power, passion, beauty, and resilience of Indigenous women." While Spiegeltent is a travelling pavilion with performances of music, theatre, spoken word and cabaret. Taking place in one of the world's few remaining tents of mirrors and this one was built in the 1920s and has traveled to festivals around the globe.

"Luminato is Toronto’s international multi-arts, multi-platform festival dedicated to performance, visual art, music, theatre, dance, and programming that cuts across traditional art form boundaries."

Luminato: Cardboard Beach

The Joy of Festival makes #Toronto a more artistic city as @Luminato brings a mixture of free and paid events from June 6 to 15, 2014. A weekend in summer is always better around a beach and we found one down at the Festival Hub in Peacut Square - only it wasn't a typical sandy beach, this one was made from cardboard.

There was a lifeguard station, just missing Pamela Anderson, umbrellas, reclining chairs and unusual shapes that would be at home on a french beach during D-Day. The urban square between Metro Hall and Roy Thomson Hall is often a host to some great events and concerts and the large Luminato stage set up right now will bring several concerts to the arts festival.

Arriving in the early afternoon on Sunday, June 8 we realized that the days entertainment was not to start until later in the afternoon. With several hours to kill until we could spin the OLG prize wheel we took time to look up the festival schedule. And here are my picks of stuff I would like to see - Green Porno Live on Stage (conceived and performed by Isabella Rossellini), Cardboard Beach (free - Los Carpinteros transform the Festival Hub), Buffy Sainte-Marie (8pm June 10 at the Festival Hub) and that's it for this year. Take a look at their extensive schedule and look for some performances that peak your interest.

“Luminato began as a dream that each year Toronto would invite the world to join us in celebrating creativity. A dream where the best artists in the world and the best artists in Canada fill the stage that is Toronto with new and wonderful creations. A dream that we could create in Toronto a festival that would become renowned the world over for its excellence, its originality and its accessibility to all people regardless of background or experience.

Unveiling the Ai Weiwei Zodiac Heads

#Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and councilors joined the Art Gallery of Ontario to unveil the @aiwwAGO art installation in the reflecting pond at City Hall.

“The City of Toronto and the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) will unveil a monumental public art work by acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. The monumental art work called Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads will inhabit Nathan Phillip Square's reflecting pool until September 22.”

Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 27 Toronto Centre-Rosedale) was joined by Elizabeth Smith, Executive Director of Curatorial Affairs, the AGO, at Tuesday, June 18, 2013 event. This installation precedes the Ai WeiWei: According to What? Opening at AGO, Canada’s only stop on the artist’s North American tour.

You can see photos of the work crews setting up the sculptures on my blog post here.

@Luminato Festival 2013

The annual celebration of arts and music in creative partnership with @LorealParisCan brings some of the best of the world to #Toronto stages and venues from June 14 - 23, 2013. At David Peacut Square the main stage comes complete with a disco ball of a size unseen since the early heyday of  the disco era. I met up with L'Oreal representative Theresa Longo at the L'Oreal beauty tent adjacent to the concert stage where she showed the many samples that visitors could receive during free beauty tips and treatments from L'Oreal Paris Canada experts.

The lovely Theresa Longo (centre)

"Today that dream has become the reality of a boisterous festival sprawling all over the city with music, theatre, dance, visual arts, literature, film and celebrations of all kinds. Luminato embraces the very diversity that is the beating heart of Toronto and is living testimony that creativity is best nourished where cultures come together in a spirit of common humanity and citizenship."

The ball sits on a small stage awaiting cleanup

The disco ball gets a good cleaning to be ready for the concerts

The ball is raised high in the air for musical perfromances

Sound checks go on during the day