A hall of mirrored buoys, an upside-down forest, a giant dog made of recycled materials.
For the third year in a row, the Winter Stations Design Competition has made over eight lifeguard stations in the Beach into fantastical art projects.
Dotting the sandy shore, from the foot of Woodbine Ave. nearly all the way to Balmy Beach Club, the winter stations will add some artistic curiosity to the chilly water front for the next five weeks.
“One of the reasons (Toronto) is a glorious city is because of the arts,” said Mayor John Tory, who was on hand Monday afternoon to help unveil the installations.
“This celebrates artists from here and from abroad and it allows part of the soul of the city to come out. It allows people to each have their own reaction to these creative installations that we’re seeing on the beach in the winter.”
More than 350 designs were submitted from around the world.
Five winning ideas, selected by a jury that included design professionals and past Winter Station winners, have been built, along with three student constructions from the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo and Humber College.
Each design draws inspiration from water, the environment or the human condition.
“I See You Ashiyu,” by Asuka Kono and Rachel Salmela of Toronto replicates a steamy Japanese foot bath near the water’s edge.
“The Beacon,” by Joao Araujo Sousa and Joanna Correia Silva of Porto, Portugal, is a charitable donation box in the form of an eight-metre-tall wooden tower.
“The main inspiration behind it is the lighthouse at the beach,” said Sousa.
“We came to find out that it actually relates to the chimneys that we can see,” he added, pointing to the towers of the water treatment plant at Ashbridges Bay.
“BuoyBuoyBuoy,” by Dionisios Vriniotis, Rob Shostak, Dakota Wares-Tani, and Julie Forand of Toronto, is a cluster of clear, opaque and reflective discs, cut in the shape of buoys.
“We wanted people to look at this, experience it and think about their memories of water,” said Shostak.
“At different times of day and in different weather you might not even see the form the way that you might think it actually is . . . Just like your memories, you kind of still don’t grasp everything perfectly.”
The winter stations are all open to interpretation, Tory said.
“It’s is a universal language. Everybody can come to these installations and have an opinion and talk to each other about them,” said the mayor. “It’s one of those things that brings together a city that is diverse in many different respects.”
The Winter Stations will remain on display until March 27.
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