Ontario Place - Marina

On May 22, 1971, Ontario Place opened to the public as a theme park devoted to showcasing the province’s cultural and economic vitality. Designed by Eberhard Zeidler, the futuristic campus was built across an artificial archipelago in Lake Ontario, south of Exhibition Place. Following the success of Expo 67 in Montreal, where a group of Canadian experimental filmmakers debuted a new multi-channel film technology, Ontario Place positioned itself as an architectural and technological forerunner by building a geodesic dome to house the world’s first permanent IMAX theatre. Zeidler’s utopian playground—the Cinesphere and its interconnected network of floating exhibition Pods—continues to define the western stretch of Toronto’s waterfront.

After a partial closure of the park in 2012, Ontario Place reopened in 2017 as a public space that brings together recreation, leisure, and cultural programming.

Ontario Place is the site for two different Biennial projects: guest curator Charles Stankievech’s cosmological program, The Drowned World, at the Cinesphere, and Wigwam Chi-Chemung, an art installation and Indigenous interpretive learning centre by artist, poet, and teacher Elder Duke Redbird at the Marina.

This Biennial site description was generated by the curatorial team, in consultation with our creative partners, to offer lesser-known facts and histories, and explore sites in relation to the changing shoreline.

This Biennial site was made possible through a partnership with Ontario Place Corporation.