Winter Stations public art exhibition has returned for its 12th year, bringing creativity, community, and colour to the coldest months of Canadian winter.
This year’s theme, “Mirage,” invited artists and designers from around the world to submit proposals for installations that “play with the boundary of what is seen and what is real in the age of AI,” and explore public art as infrastructure that gathers people in shared reality.
Since 2015, Winter Stations has become an international launching pad for new ideas in public art, offering winners full materials, fabrication labour, and a CAD $2,000 honorarium to support what is often the winners’ first public art commission.
The 2026 Winter Stations selection jury was made up of Toronto’s leading voices in art, design, architecture, and urbanism. This included Jason Thorne, chief planner, City of Toronto, Katriina Campitelli, public art officer, City of Toronto, Alana Mercury, director, programming and placemaking, Northcrest Developments, Luisa Ji, studio director, UKAI Projects, and Janna Hiemstra, manager, craft and design, Harbourfront Centre.
Winter Stations is made possible by the support of the sponsors RAW Design, kg&a, Northcrest Developments, City of Toronto, Mechanical Contractors Association of Ontario, Ontario Association of Architects, MicroPro Sienna, Feeley Group, Sali Tabacchi Brand & Design, and Meevo Digital.
This year’s exhibition on Woodbine Beach launched on Family Day, which fell on February 16, 2026, and will be on display until March 30.
The 2026 Winter Stations winners include the following.
CHIMERA by Denys Horodnyak (Ukraine) & Enzo Zak Lux (Germany)
Denys Horodnyak and Enzo Zak Lux share an emerging Berlin-based creative practice. Horodnyak is a young architect from Ukraine whose professional experience ranges between the fields of architectural and installation design, as well as spatial research and urban planning. Lux works as a multidisciplinary architectural designer. His practice explores the interaction of colour and architectural space and creates spatial and communicative designs for exhibition spaces as well as commercial and private environments.
Their art installation was made in partnership with the Mechanical Contractors Association of Ontario (MCAO). Fabrication was led by Courtney Chard, a pipe welder with MultiTech Trades Corp and member of UA Local 46. She is also a metal artist, fabricating unique designs out of her shop in Georgetown, Ontario.
“The design of CHIMERA was inspired by the hidden narratives behind objects in our everyday city environment. This became the idea to make this installation out of convex mirrors and construction piping,” said Horodnyak.
“We’re very grateful for the sponsorship [from Mechanical Contractors Association of Ontario]. Knowing there’s this union and pipe welder that are contributing on a very tangible level to executing our design is really eye-opening,” said Lux.
Embrace – Will Cuthbert (Canada)
Will Cuthbert is an art director and 3D artist currently based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, having been a lifelong Toronto east-ender. He’s currently the art director at Wealthsimple, having previously worked with creative agencies like Cossette and Leo Burnett. Cuthbert previously won Winter Stations in 2022 for The Hive, in collaboration with Kathleen Dogantzis. His art installation was made in partnership with Northcrest Developments and their director, programming and placemaking, Alana Mercury.
“Will’s art embodies the playful and uplifting warm embrace that people crave during the winter months,” said Mercury. “We were delighted to premiere his piece at YZD, as part of our annual Hangar Skate, and to see thousands of people experience the optical illusion in motion as they skated around the colourful hands.”
Photo credit: Joel Gale
SPECULARIA – TORNADO SOUP: Andrew Clark (USA)
Andrew Clark is a Portland, Maine-based interdisciplinary designer, who creates site-specific interventions under the name TORNADO SOUP. His work, spanning from hand-scaled objects to immersive installations, explores connections between contemporary and vernacular design sensibilities. His art installation is being fabricated with MicroPro Sienna treated lumber, a sponsor for the sixth straight year.
“A lot of my practice is very material based. I was inspired by seeing plywood, like MicroPro Sienna, used in residential design in really creative ways,” said Clarke. “I’m really grateful to everyone involved to have my idea built into something I can see and experience.”
“We are proud to be a long-standing supporter of Winter Stations and always enjoy seeing the creativity of the artists”, said Jana Proctor, marketing manager, Timber Specialties. “This showcases our wood in a unique way, and the elements provide the perfect showcase for its durability.”
Crest – University of Waterloo: Clay te Bokkel, Isabella Ieraci, Matthew Lam, Sasha Rao, Simon Huang, Oskar Peng, David Shen (Canada)
The students at the University of Waterloo designed this installation to resemble, from afar, a pile of driftwood washed up on the beach. As one approaches, the geometry of the wave gradually reveals itself. The waffled plywood form acts as an illusion where individual pieces appear and disappear with different directions of arrival, ultimately merging with the landscape beyond.
Glaciate – Toronto Metropolitan University, Department of Architectural Science (Canada), in collaboration with Ming Chuan University, School of Design (Taiwan): Finn Ferrall, Nicholas Kisil, Marko Sikic, and Vincent Hui
Students and faculty supervisors at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), in collaboration with Ming Chuan University, designed Glaciate as a corridor of vertical polycarbonate panels, filled with water from the lake nearby, creating a set of ice lenses.
As the lake water freezes and thaws, the panels cycle through phases of transparency, translucency, and full opacity. From outside, a red lifeguard stand is never wholly visible or wholly concealed. It appears through fragments, outlines, and momentary flashes of red. From within, the surrounding beach appears a mirage.