Huge installations to transform this Toronto beach

Huge art installations will transform a beach in Toronto once again this winter.

The Winter Stations return to Woodbine Beach from Feb. 16 to March 30.

Since 2015, the annual international design competition invites artists, architects, designers and students to reimagine lifeguard stations as interactive public art installations, transforming the beach into an open-air exhibition each winter, Winter Stations says on its website.

Winter Stations announced the winners of its 2026 public art competition this week.

In the 2026 edition, artists, designers and architects were invited to tickle the boundary between what is seen and what is real in the theme Mirage.

“The Stations should transform the shoreline into a place where illusion becomes architecture, offering glimpses of uncanny possibilities,” Winter Stations says.

The five works selected this year are Chimera by Denys Horodnyak and Enzo Zak Lux, Embrace by Will Cuthbert, Specularia by Andrew Clark, Crest by University of Waterloo (Clay te Bokkel, Isabella Ieraci, Matthew Lam, Sasha Rao, Simon Huang, Oskar Peng and David Shen) and Glaciate by Toronto Metropolitan University in collaboration with Ming Chuan University (Finn Ferrall, Nicholas Kisil, Marko Sikic, and Vincent Hui).

This year artists come from Canada, the U.S., Germany, the Ukraine and Taiwan.

Glaciate creates a set of “ice lenses.” Rendering: Winter Stations

The pieces include colossal hands, driftwood that, upon closer inspection, resembles a huge, cresting wave, a structure that blends “reality and deception,” fisheye mirrors that challenge one’s perspective and a “set of ice lenses.”

“The winds and snow, the vastness of Lake Ontario, and the shoreline against Toronto’s skyline have captured imaginations worldwide to explore new visions of art in public space,” the Winter Stations’ website reads.

The installations are free to visit.

For more information, see the website here.

Lead rendering of Crest: Winter Stations