THE POWER PLANT EXPLORES THE MEMORY OF PLACE
On Toronto’s waterfront, contemporary art invites us to see landscape as a place where histories accumulate. The fall season at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery brings together installation, film, photography, painting, textiles and ceramics around a shared question: what do we retain from the places we inhabit and the communities we come from?
Running from October 24, 2026, through March 21, 2027, the program connects Korean mythology with the ocean, young people on an island in Newfoundland with its geography, and the routes of labour with the global movement of raw materials. This overview is based on the press materials and images supplied by the gallery through DMPUBLIC.
MYTHOLOGY AND MEMORY BENEATH THE SEA
Vancouver-born, UK-based Zadie Xa and her collaborator Benito Mayor Vallejo present an immersive installation with a deliberately expansive title: Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything. Sound, twilight-coloured murals and hybrid bronze figures sit alongside paintings incorporating textiles that evoke traditional Korean patchwork quilting.
The project interweaves storytelling, folklore, diasporic identity and marine ecology. Rather than placing nature and culture in separate compartments, it invites an awareness of their connections. The exhibition is developed in partnership with Esker Foundation in Calgary and PHI in Montréal, where its next presentation is scheduled for 2027.
FOGO, AN ISLAND AND ITS YOUNG PEOPLE
In Fogo, Sharon Lockhart presents work developed over four summers on Fogo Island, Newfoundland. Her film WINDWARD (2025) observes the island’s geography and places its young people in scenes of play within the landscape. The series Fogo Island Portrait Studio (2025) accompanies the film with portraits of young residents.
Geological formations, climate and the territory’s expansive scale are central to the project. The exhibition is organized by The Power Plant and The Vega Foundation, curated by Julia Paoli and Kate Whiteway in dialogue with the gallery’s curatorial team. The institutions have maintained an annual collaboration since 2022.
THE INVISIBLE ROUTES OF LABOUR
The moving-image program Owner of a Lonely Heart brings together five works with a total running time of 80 minutes. The participating artists are Haig Aivazian, Stephanie Comilang, Alia Farid, Hope Pearl Strickland and Yuyan Wang. Documentary, narrative, experimental and archival approaches connect extraction, labour and territory.
Its scope encompasses rivers in Jamaica, wetlands in southern Iraq, Philippine maritime routes, Beirut and the circulation of images online. The connecting thread is both material and human: how resources are transformed and moved, and how those movements affect the people whose environments make that circulation possible. This presentation also emerges from the partnership with The Vega Foundation.
INHABITING, INHERITING AND ENDURING
Ella Gonzales translates memories of domestic interiors into layers of painted, translucent fabric. In A Room’s Proportion, above or below, the proportions of remembered rooms overlap, allowing visitors to move among spaces and histories that remain visible through one another.
Sami Tsang inaugurates the Smokestack Commission program with What We Carry Forward. A large-scale ink mural inspired by childhood shadow puppetry is populated by small porcelain figures. Some carry butterfly wings that also serve as armour: an image of the inheritances, protections and transformations passed between generations.
On the south façade, Morgan Sears-Williams presents feeling along the edges. The artist filmed Hanlan’s Point Beach on 16 mm, developed the material in instant coffee and buried it in sand for five days. Residue altered the emulsion, leaving abrasions and other traces. The project links shoreline erosion with the loss of public gathering places and refuges for queer communities.
PLANNING YOUR VISIT
The exhibitions are at 231 Queens Quay West, Toronto. According to information supplied by the institution, the gallery opens Wednesday through Sunday, 11 AM–6 PM, and closes Mondays and Tuesdays. Exhibition admission is free. Check the official program before travelling for special opening hours and activities.
The season also includes tours, screenings, conversations and other public programs. Together, the exhibitions offer different ways into contemporary art, from the sensory experience of an installation to the slower attention invited by a film or portrait. For visitors seeking a cultural outing in Toronto, several practices and geographies meet within a single visit.
GALERÍA FOTOGRÁFICA
Official images of The Power Plant and the artists. Select a thumbnail and use the arrows to navigate.
CIENCIALA SOMBRA DEL AGUJERO NEGRO RESISTE UNA NUEVA PRUEBA
