A major cultural partnership between Public Art Fund, the New York-based non-profit organization dedicated to bringing free public art exhibitions to a broad audience, and Toronto’s Lassonde Art Trail (LAT), will connect storied Central Park to Canada’s innovative new public art trail on Toronto’s waterfront, with a co-commission of an outdoor sculpture from internationally renowned visual artist Monira Al Qadiri.

The landmark partnership with Public Art Fund marks the first time the U.S.-based organization has co-commissioned an artwork with a Canadian cultural organization. For this special outdoor art commission, the team at Public Art Fund and the Lassonde Art Trail selected the artist together and have collaborated on the proposal and development stages. The major outdoor artwork from Al Qadiri will be unveiled during the summer of 2025 at Doris C. Freedman Plaza, at the southeast entrance of Central Park, where it will be displayed for one year. It will then come to Toronto’s waterfront to be exhibited at a major entrance plaza on the Lassonde Art Trail in September 2026. 

Monira Al Qadiri is a Kuwaiti visual artist born in Senegal and educated in Japan. Spanning sculpture, installation, film and performance, Al Qadiri's multifaceted practice is largely based on research into the cultural legacies of fossil fuels, and is expanding towards examining ancient mythologies and their interpretations of natural ecosystems. Her work often employs speculative scenarios that take inspiration from science fiction, autobiography, traditional practices and pop culture, resulting in uncanny and covertly subversive works. She is currently based in Berlin.

Monira Al Qadiri

LAT has established a partnership with the York University L.L. Odette Sculptor in Residence program, selecting Toronto-based artist Kara Hamilton to research and fabricate a sculpture in collaboration with York students, which will be exhibited on the art trail opening summer 2026.


Kara Hamilton works in a variety of mediums: sculpture, drawing in two and three dimensions, and jewelry. She explores the agency of material using mostly found or discarded matter. With a background in visual art, design, and architecture, Hamilton’s works live at the intersection of these disciplines, de-contextualizing materials and forms in order to create new narratives. 

The LAT-York University partnership gives Hamilton time, space and support to delve into exciting research with York students. During her residency the group will workshop built compositions using rammed earth techniques and cob, which includes the ingredients clay, sand, straw, and water. Hamilton’s exploration of ecological materials for use in public art will result in a sculpture that is empathetic to natural ecosystems occurring on the future art trail. 

Hamilton has exhibited nationally and internationally at spaces such as TOPS Gallery, Memphis; Salon 94, New York; Art Gallery of Ontario; Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Winnipeg; EFA Project Space, New York; Tate Liverpool, Liverpool; Aspen Museum, Aspen; Kunstverein Amsterdam, Amsterdam; Taut and Tame, Berlin; and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. Hamilton is also the co-director of Kunstverein Toronto. She lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Kara Hamilton

Internationally renowned artist Kent Monkman will contribute a new permanent sculpture for the Art Trail. Specially conceived for the site, Monkman's first ever public artwork will be unveiled in summer 2026. 

“I’m honoured to have been asked to be part of this project. Given the importance of water to us as Cree people, all Indigenous people—really everyone—it means a great deal to me to create an artwork that will live on the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto, where I have lived and worked for over three decades,” said Kent Monkman. “I want to create an artwork that sends a message to this city—which is home to people from many diverse backgrounds from all over the world—referencing, in a playful way, the many layers of Indigenous presence here.”

Monkman is an interdisciplinary Cree visual artist. A member of Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 Territory (Manitoba), he lives and works between New York City and Toronto.

His artworks are held in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum; the Hood Museum of Art; the Heard Museum; Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal; the Glenbow Museum; macLYON; and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Private collections that house his works include Art Bridges; the Horseman Foundation; the Tia Collection, the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation; Forge Project; the Gochman Family Collection; the Sobey Art Foundation; and the Rob & Monique Sobey Foundation.

In 2019, Monkman was commissioned as the inaugural artist to make two monumental paintings for The Met’s Great Hall Commission project. In 2023, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada—Canada’s highest civilian honour.

Kent Monkman

The Art Trail is a series of 15 interconnected public art sites that will weave through 4.2km of new waterfront parkland. Themes and relationships explored by art commissions and loans will acknowledge the site’s layered histories, geographies, and changing social dynamics. These include Indigenous contexts, the city and lake, civic society and the public realm, waterways past and present, industrial histories, wetland restoration and bioengineering, native plantings and local ecosystems, the environment and sustainability.

Commissioned artists and LAT partnerships will be announced throughout 2024 and 2025.

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Shezad Dawood (1974), based in London, is a multidisciplinary artist who interweaves stories, realities and symbolism to create richly layered artworks. He has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto; Barakat Contemporary, Seoul; Deutsche Bank Frieze Lounges; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Museum of Modern Art, New York and Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice. He has also shown in numerous biennials including the Toronto Biennial of Art, Gwangju Biennale, Sharjah Biennial, Lahore Biennial,  Dhaka Art Summit and Venice Biennale. Shezad's works are included in the collections of the Guggenheim; Tate; LACMA: National Gallery of Canada; The British Museum and Mathaf, Doha. Recent public art projects include those for Desert X AlUla, St. Pancreas Station London and upcoming for the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC), UK.

Shezad Dawood

Nicole Eisenman (1965) is a French-born American artist based in New York City. Having established herself as a painter, Nicole has expanded her practice into the third dimension with works such as 

Nicole is a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2018. In 2019, her work was included in both the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions include: 

, Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Whitechapel Gallery, London, and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2023–24; 

, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany, 2019. Her work is included in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany. 

Nicole Eisenman

Shilpa Gupta (1976) lives and works in Mumbai, India. Her work communicates—across cultures—the impact of dominant forces acting on local and national communities. Her public artworks have been exhibited in MIA park Doha, Abu Dhabi, at the National Gallery of Singapore and in the Boras Biennale. Shilpa has also shown in museums around the world such as Tate Modern, London; Museum of Modern Art, NYC; Louisiana Museum; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Serpentine Gallery, London; Mori Museum, Tokyo; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC; Ishara Art Foundation, UAE; and Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi, as well as in biennales including those in Venice, Auckland, Sharjah, Melbourne, Seoul, Havana, Sydney, Yogyakarta, Echigo-Tsumari, Shanghai and Berlin. Her work is included in the collections of Tate, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Centre Georges Pompidou, M+ Museum, MCA Chicago, Deutsche Bank, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Asia Society, Fonds National d’Art Contemporain – France and the National Gallery of Canada.

Shilpa Gupta

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA (1962) based in London has an interdisciplinary practice that uses citations of Western art history and literature to question the validity of contemporary cultural and national identities within the context of globalization. Yinka has been nominated for the Turner Prize and his first public art commission 

 was displayed on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London and is now in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. His artworks are included in notable museum collections, including the Tate; Victoria and Albert Museum; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome and VandenBroek Foundation, The Netherlands. In 2023 he unveiled a new outdoor sculpture commissioned by the David Oluwale Memorial Association in Aire Park, Leeds and in 2024 he was included in the Venice Biennale and in the revered Nigerian Pavilion.

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA

Joana Vasconcelos (1971) is a Portuguese visual artist based in Lisbon and internationally recognized for her monumental sculptures and immersive installations. She has exhibited around the world at venues including Grassi Palace, Thyssen-Bornemisza, Royal Academy of Arts, São Paulo's CCBB and Pinacoteca, Istanbul Modern, Palais de Tokyo, and the Hermitage. Joana's artworks are included in the collections of ARoS Aarhus Art Museum in Aarhus, the Caldic Collection in Rotterdam, Museu Coleção Berardo in Lisbon and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington. Joana has made numerous public artworks with major presentations at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK and Palace of Versailles, France among others. Her

 was considered “the first wholeheartedly joyful artistic masterpiece of the 21st century” by The Guardian and came second in its “best art and architecture” 2023 list.

Joana Vasconcelos

Director and Chief Curator, Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, Gambier, US

Born in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Daisy earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from the Université de Montréal and a master’s degree in art history from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Daisy in currently based in Ohio, US. Daisy was a 2023 Fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership and mentored by MoMA CEO/Director Glenn Lowry. Prior to Gund Gallery, Daisy held the positions of Co-Curator MOCA Toronto Triennial, Director of Artist Programs at the Lunder Institute for American Art, Colby College and has worked as an advisor for private and public collectors.

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Art at OCAD U, Toronto, Canada

Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Tairone has a BA in Art History from the University of British Columbia and an MA in Curating from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York. He is currently based in Toronto and is both an Assistant Professor at OCAD U while also working on a public art commissioning program in Dubai. He has also held the positions of Curator, Toronto Biennial; Curator, Performa, New York; Head of Public Engagement for TCA Abu Dhabi and Programming Director, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai.

Director of Exhibitions Somerset House, London, UK

Originally hailing from Vancouver, Cliff completed his PhD at University College London, UK, focusing on Vancouver art and artists. He is now based in London. Cliff started his curatorial career as the Education and Public Programs Coordinator at UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver. He went on to work as Assistant Curator at Tate Modern and Senior Curator at the Hayward Gallery, both in London. At Somerset House his portfolio includes the annual courtyard commission.

Senior Curator, Public Art Fund, New York, US

Melanie holds a BA in Art History and Visual Arts from Barnard College and an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London. Melanie is currently based in New York. Prior to joining Public Art Fund Melanie was Associate Curator for High Line Art, NYC; founding Director & Chief Curator of Concrete Utopia and a critic at Yale School for Art, New Haven, Connecticut.

Clare graduated with a degree in the History of Art from Manchester University, UK. With over thirty years of experience working at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Clare is considered one of the most accomplished experts on developing and siting sculpture in the public realm. Clare has sat on numerous public art juries and advised internationally, as well as holding the additional position of Curator of Frieze Sculpture Park in Regents Park for ten years.

Selection Committee

Five artists have been shortlisted to present proposals for a Permanent Artwork Competition. LAT received nominations from over 30 arts professionals and the shortlisted proposals will be reviewed by a selection committee at the end of 2024. 

First of its kind in Canada, the Lassonde Art Trail is a dynamic program of permanent and rotating artworks by outstanding national and international artists.On pace to launch in 2026, the Art Trail will be free to visit and open throughout the year.