In December of 2023 I was sent a brief to make a series of videos about a completely unknown and then, unannounced, permanent public art piece coming to Sherbourne Common, by the waterfront in Toronto. The design was chosen from an international call for proposals.
Fast forward to March 2024 and I was off, driving to Montreal to film with artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer who was so gracious to spend the day with me explaining the design of the forthcoming public art piece he had named the Unfinished Arch.
Below, watch the video I completed for the public announcement less than a month later, filmed at Antimodular Research in Montreal, and at T3 Bayside in Toronto:
Link to final Video on WatefrontToronto's YouTube Channel
Construction was commenced by Eventscape, a Toronto-based fabrication studio. They are known to tackle seemingly impossible projects, both within Canada and around the world. Just recently Eventscape released this video (including some of my footage as well) which highlights the fabrication of the Arch:
Fast forward again to the beginning of June 2026. The fences surrounding the site on which the Arch stands have just come down and I get to catch up with Rafael and document the public launch and the evening in the video below:
Link to Video on WaterfrontToronto's YouTube Channel
“The piece is a stainless-steel structure that cantilevers 14m from a single point in the ground, loosely echoing mid-century monumental arches like Saarinen's in St. Louis, but deliberately left incomplete. It teeters slightly, supported by an enormous hidden foundation underground. Visitors are invited to touch the floating, truncated edge. Their presence is detected by sensors that trigger a sequence of light travelling across the structure, temporarily “completing” the arch—a kind of contact closure through the participant, loosely reminiscent of Mexican “toques”. The work is intentionally haptic: it only activates through physical presence.
Unfinished Arch is an anti-monument—a reflection on the failed promises of modernity, especially its faith in progress and techno-optimism. At a time when our social and ecological systems are in crisis, the work points to a collective responsibility for imagining what comes next: ultimately, we are left holding the weight.” - https://www.lozano-hemmer.com/unfinished_arch.php
The “Unfinished” in Unfinished Arch doesn’t mean something is missing; it’s deliberately incomplete.
The artwork depends on you. It invites you in, asking what it means to support something, even for a moment.
Come experience it for yourself, and have a friend or family member capture the moment:
📍 Sherbourne Common, 61 Dockside Dr, Toronto, ON M5A 0R6
Additional Photos:
All photos are my own, and copyright Andrew Williamson Photography (unless otherwise stated)
Thank you for reading (and watching) No AI tools were used in the creation of this post. Any grammatical or spelling errors are the result of my career as a professional photographer and filmmaker and not being a writer. ✌️
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