Toronto art exhibit celebrates community space in vacant lot known as Bloordale Beach

A new art exhibit in Toronto tells the story of "not an ordinary beach" that was created in a vacant gravel lot in the west end during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bloordale Beach, a short-lived beach not near a body of water and in essence a symbolic beach, was a pandemic project near Bloor and Dufferin streets. The exhibit at Urbanspace Gallery, 401 Richmond St. W., on display until Aug. 23, has brought elements of the beach back to life.

Bloordale Beach was a spot loved by the community, said Shari Kasman, a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist and writer who created the exhibit and helped create the beach. She is the author of Welcome to Bloordale Beach.

"We're surrounded by images that I had taken at the beach over its year and half life span," Kasman said in an interview with CBC Toronto this week.

Kasman said the exhibit features video and audio recordings and articles about the beach, beach ephemera, beach chairs and even beach balls. 

"It's got a whole Bloordale Beach vibe. It's beach season so this is perfect."

Kasman co-created the beach on the site of a former Toronto District School Board (TDSB) school in the area of Brock Avenue and Croatia Street. The school was torn down in 2019. The site was filled with gravel and fenced off because it was a construction site. 

A friend, who wanted to recreate a shortcut, began to remove fence panels. The TDSB quickly replaced the panels that were removed. After the pandemic hit, Kasman said she began to hang around at the quiet site. Then, one day in late May 2020, she saw someone lying there in nothing but a pair of shorts. 

"I saw this guy. I thought, oh wow, it's beachy here all of a sudden. He's sunbathing," Kasman said.

Kasman said she and the friend began talking about what to do about the space. She sent a photo of the site to the friend and told him it was a beach. She called it Bloordale Beach, and they put up signs on the site with the name. 

"It became a real community space and it became an inside joke within the community," Kasman said.

"It lifted people's spirits during a very difficult time."

Kasman said people recorded music videos there and she led tours in which she talked about the beach as a UNESCO world heritage site. The beach was also the site of a community garden in 2021 and a sea turtle nesting area. 

She said the beach was a source of inspiration for people.

"It's hard to find fun in the city sometimes, and it's hard to find space. A lot of people don't have personal yard space, and so these public spaces are really important, and especially we saw this during COVID," Kasman said.

"Taking over a city block like this and having community do whatever they want there — this is not something that normally happens. But I think it was a positive thing for the city."

Today, the beach is long gone, having been closed in 2021 to make way for the neighbourhood's new secondary school.

Kasman said it was sad to say goodbye but it was always supposed to be a temporary project.

"That's kind of why I wanted to document it so well and make a book out of it and a gallery exhibit and all this so the memories are still there. People who didn't know about it at the time can learn about it now, and maybe we could have other spaces like this in the city."

Beth Warrian, a filmmaker who made a four minute and 30 second long documentary called Bloordale Beach, said the documentary was an attempt to celebrate the absurdism of the beach.

"We're so starved for any sort of community gathering place because our parks have basically become housing," Warrian said.

"The whole community at large just rolled with it in an organic way, and it became something that belonged to everyone."

Renato Carvalho, a.k.a. Pop Plug, an artist and producer, said it was an inspiring place that was a hub for the community. He wrote a song about the beach and said there should be a memorial to it.

"It was a community centre without the building almost, if I had to describe it ... Especially coming off the COVID pandemic, it's just a very inspiring place to be at."

According to the gallery, Bloordale Beach has been the subject of two documentaries, five songs and now a photobook.

"Clearly, Bloordale Beach was not an ordinary beach," the gallery says.

"It offered levity during those dark days of the pandemic lockdown and it was a community space where people could gather outdoors, socially distanced, when most indoor spaces were off limits... Fans of the beach reminisce about it, to this day."