Resurfacing & Crossroads.

Resurfacing was a collaboration by Exhibition Place and The Bentway demonstrating the power of public art and the vast future possibilities for The Gardiner Expressway. Reflecting on a highway undergoing major renewal, Resurfacing layers, tears, weaves, and folds striking images of the Gardiner Expressway’s many transformations over time – including the major repair work currently happening now. The Gardiner Expressway was built in the 1950s and 60’s to connect the growing city by car. At the time, the “super highway” was considered a marvel of progressive infrastructure, and yet its construction required that much in its path was dismantled or reconceived. Seventy years later, the Gardiner structure is in need of care and repair. Resurfacing collages archival images of the past century and present-day photography to explore these many transformations to the Gardiner over time, as well as to spaces such as Exhibition Place and The Bentway, which run along its length. Through gestures of tearing, crumpling, and ripping images, Thalmann acknowledges the various ways these sites along the Gardiner have been activated, dismantled, and rebuilt alongside the structure itself, while acts of folding, layering, and weaving transform and reimagine the highway. Blending colourful abstraction and rarely seen historical imagery, Thalmann resurfaces the unexpected beauty and memory held by the concrete and rebar, reminding us that the Gardiner, like our city, needs to be maintained, but, in doing so, can also be reconfigured and reimagined.