Gardiner Museum Transformation and Linda Rotua Sormin: Uncertain Ground

Gardiner marks opening of new ground floor and special exhibition with Free Celebration Weekend on November 8 & 9, 2025

Architectural rendering courtesy of Montgomery Sisam Architects

Gardiner Museum Reveals Major Transformation and New Exhibition by Linda Rotua Sormin

Opens November 6, 2025
Uncertain Ground Artist Talk and Reception: November 6, 2025, 6 – 8:30pm
Free Celebration Weekend: November 8 & 9, 2025, 10am – 5pm
Gardiner Museum, Toronto
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The Gardiner Museum proudly announces the reopening of its fully transformed ground floor, marking the Museum’s most ambitious capital project in two decades. This once-in-a-generation renovation reimagines the Gardiner’s role as an inspiring and accessible community-driven hub where clay serves as a bridge between cultures, histories, and people.

Designed by Montgomery Sisam Architects and Andrew Jones Design, in collaboration with architect Chris Cornelius of studio:indigenous, the reimagining of the Gardiner’s 9,000-square-foot ground floor features new Collection Galleries, a fully equipped Makerspace, a Community Learning Centre, and the Gardiner’s first-ever gallery of Indigenous ceramics.

The Gardiner Museum Indigenous Advisory Circle—Mary Anne Barkhouse, Bonnie Devine, Kent Monkman, Andre Morriseau, Duke Redbird, Frank Shebageget, and Tekaronhiáhkhwa / Santee Smith—provided invaluable guidance.

Architectural rendering courtesy of Montgomery Sisam Architects

Historic Private and Public Support

The project’s realization was sparked by a transformational $9-million gift from The Radlett Foundation, established by the late William B.G. Humphries. It’s the largest donation in the Museum’s history by an individual other than its founders and includes more than 250 objects from Humphries’s personal collection.

Additional major support came from The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation, the Lindy Green Family Foundation, the Appleyard Rebanks Family, and Diana Reitberger, as well as public funding from the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Canada Cultural Spaces Fund.

Nadia Myre Commission Unveiled

The reopening also marks the debut of a major new commission by Nadia Myre, a contemporary visual artist from Montreal and an Algonquin member of Kitigan Zibi Anishinaabeg First Nation. Generously supported by the Sabourin Family Foundation, the installation speaks to histories of trade, transcultural exchange, and local geologies. Myre experiments with scale, shape, and texture, and a new palette inspired by the Canadian Shield.

Linda Rotua Sormin. Photo: Sofia Taylor

Linda Rotua Sormin: Uncertain Ground Opens November 6

In conjunction with the reveal of the Museum’s transformed ground floor, the Gardiner presents Linda Rotua Sormin: Uncertain Ground, the artist’s first solo museum exhibition and largest project to date. Raised in Thailand and Canada, Sormin investigates her family’s roots in Indonesia, drawing on Batak mythology to create a richly layered exploration of how life in today’s cosmopolitan city intersects with ancestral memories and the need for spiritual belonging.

The exhibition brings together clay, sculpture, video, sound, hand-cut watercolour painting, and digital fabrication in a multi-sensory environment where roosters, tigers, dragons, and sacred texts serve as portals into ancient knowledge. Sormin’s towering web-like assemblages transform the Exhibition Hall into an immersive world that is at once awe-inspiring and intimate. Colonial artifacts, everyday kitsch, and fragments from the artist’s studio floor dangle and nestle within the latticework.

The exhibition unfolds on three levels: a central raised platform evokes a volcanic lake with an underworld of mythical beasts and coded divination texts; a tangle of precarious ceramic sculptures suggests an earthly middle ground inhabited by humans; and a suspended projection screen references a celestial realm of spirits and birds. The result is an environment that feels alive and in motion, offering audiences an encounter that is both visceral and contemplative.

Linda Rotua Sormin: Uncertain Ground runs from November 6, 2025 to April 12, 2026.

Related Programming

Uncertain Ground Artist Talk and Reception
November 6, 2025, 6 – 8:30pm
Get tickets

In this lively artist talk, Sormin sits down with Chief Curator & Deputy Director Sequoia Miller to explore the tangled stories, materials, and ideas behind her bold ceramic installations. After the talk, meet the artist and experience the exhibition up close.

Free Celebration Weekend
November 8 & 9, 2025, 10am – 5pm
Learn more

Celebrate the reveal of the Gardiner’s transformed ground floor and the opening of Linda Rotua Sormin: Uncertain Ground with a free weekend of hands-on clay activities, tours, live music, food, dance, and more. No registration necessary!

About the Gardiner Museum

The Gardiner Museum welcomes and inspires audiences of diverse backgrounds, abilities, and experiences through the rich history and storytelling power of clay. It stewards and animates an internationally significant collection of ceramics while centering hands-on learning and making. The Gardiner engages in important cultural conversations taking place in Toronto and beyond through gallery programming and collaborative partnerships. It works to advance Indigenous self-determination and build human connections, creating space for reflection and dialogue.

Founded in 1984 by George and Helen Gardiner, the Museum stewards a permanent collection of over 5,000 objects from Ancestral Abiayala, Europe, Japan, and China, as well as contemporary works with an emphasis on leading Canadian artists.

For more information, please visit: gardinermuseum.com.

The Gardiner Museum is situated on the ancestral and traditional territories of many nations, including the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. It is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. As a museum that celebrates the material of the Earth, the Gardiner is committed to honouring Indigenous peoples’ cultural and spiritual connections to the land. Indigenous self-determination is central to our work, and we strive to celebrate Indigenous knowledge and creativity through our collections, exhibitions, and programming.

Gardiner Museum
111 Queen’s Park
Toronto, ON M5S 2C7
gardinermuseum.com
mail@gardinermuseum.com
416.586.8080

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Accessibility: The Gardiner Museum is fully accessible. For more information, visit here.