Lassonde Art Trail to Unveil New Works by Kent Monkman and Monira Al Qadiri

Monira Al Qadiri, First Sun, 2025. Photo: Nicholas Knight, courtesy of Public Art Fund, NY.

Lassonde Art Trail

Biidaasige Park, Toronto
Free and open year-round

This September, the Lassonde Art Trail unveils major new works by Kent Monkman and Monira Al Qadiri, introducing two ambitious large-scale installations to the public art trail.

Kent Monkman’s The Colony, the first-ever public artwork by the internationally renowned Cree artist, and Monira Al Qadiri’s First Sun expand the experience of the Art Trail with works conceived at a scale and in relationship to place.

Set within Biidaasige Park on Toronto’s waterfront, the Lassonde Art Trail brings together artworks by Canadian, Indigenous and international artists in direct conversation with land, water, restored habitats and the changing city.

Monira Al Qadiri: First Sun

Rising 17 feet, Monira Al Qadiri’s First Sun reimagines Khepri, the ancient Egyptian deity associated with the rising sun, as an iridescent hybrid human-scarab figure.

Drawing on the scarab’s ancient associations with the sun, regeneration and rebirth, Al Qadiri transforms an insect once revered as divine into a monumental presence within the contemporary landscape. The gleaming scarab beetle is rendered in crystal-based pigments that shift between purple and green as light moves across its surface. First Sun collapses familiar categories of species, gender and time. The work reflects Al Qadiri’s interest in how humanity explores the unknown through science, religion, mythology, and art.

First Sun will be on view at the Lassonde Art Trail starting September 12, 2026.

Co-commissioned by the Lassonde Art Trail and New York’s Public Art Fund, First Sun comes to Toronto following its presentation at Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park, New York City.

Monira Al Qadiri will appear at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) for the first Lassonde Art Trail Artist Talk, a new series organized in partnership with the ROM. On Monday, September 14, 2026 at 6:30pm, Al Qadiri will share the inspiration and creative development behind First Sun, its relationship to its new setting in Biidaasige Park and its previous site in Central Park, and how the work connects with her broader practice in public art and large-scale sculpture.

Kent Monkman, Maquette for The Colony (detail), 2026. Patinated resin. Image courtesy of the artist.

Kent Monkman: The Colony

Kent Monkman’s The Colony marks a significant development in the artist’s practice: his first-ever public art commission.

Created specifically for its permanent location on the Lassonde Art Trail in Biidaasige Park, this significant bronze installation will be located adjacent to the newly formed mouth of the Don River, where the river meets Lake Ontario.

The Colony draws on the role of the beaver, Castor canadensis, in the natural, Indigenous and colonial histories of Turtle Island. Monkman’s larger-than-life beavers evoke traditional Cree stories alongside references to European art history, bringing these histories into conversation within the remade waterfront landscape.

Conceived as a sculptural environment that visitors can move through, a 15-foot-tall alto-relief is accompanied by a series of large-scale, thematically connected sculptures, allowing the work to reveal itself gradually through shifting viewpoints.

A member of Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 Territory, Monkman is internationally recognized for a practice that reworks and challenges the conventions of Western European and American art history. Through painting, sculpture, installation, performance and film, he examines colonization, sexuality, loss, resilience and the complexities of historic and contemporary Indigenous experience.

The Colony will be unveiled at the end of September. Kent Monkman will present the second Lassonde Art Trail Artist Talk at the ROM on Thursday, October 1, 2026 at 6:30pm. He will discuss how The Colony was conceived, composed, fabricated and integrated into its site at the newly remediated mouth of the Don River.

Experience the Lassonde Art Trail

With the installation of First Sun and The Colony, the Lassonde Art Trail offers two major new points of encounter within an already expansive public art experience.

Across more than four kilometres of trails, visitors can discover works by Monira Al Qadiri, Alexandre Arrechea, Nadia Belerique & Tony Romano, Tracey Emin, Ryan Gander, Kara Hamilton, Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, Lisa Hirmer, Kent Monkman, Caroline Monnet & Dean Baldwin Lew, Oluseye, Hank Willis Thomas and Virginia Overton.

Integrated throughout Biidaasige Park, the artworks along the Lassonde Art Trail are experienced through movement across a living waterfront landscape of river, lake, wetland, parkland and city.

The Lassonde Art Trail is open 24 hours a day, year-round, and can be explored by foot, bike or kayak. The full route takes approximately two hours to walk or can be experienced in sections and across multiple visits. Free guided tours are offered on Saturdays, with current tour and event information available on the Lassonde Art Trail website.

This September, discover the art and experience the Lassonde Art Trail.

Visit lassondearttrail.org to explore the artworks, plan your visit and find current tour and event information.

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