Dawoud Bey: Material Histories, Living Landscapes

The first thing you see is a lake. A wall-sized print of Lake Erie, shot from the Ohio shore looking north towards Canada, meets you at the entrance: no people, only water and sky. It belongs to Bey's series on the last stretch of the Underground Railroad.

Inside, 23 large black-and-white photographs of Louisiana plantations and Virginia's Richmond Slave Trail line the walls, hung tightly so the woods and fields feel hemmed in. Bey shot every one at eye level, he says, to suggest the view of the enslaved people who moved through them. In the middle, his two-channel film 350,000 walks a slowed-down Steadicam along the trail over layered footsteps, breathing and birdsong. Four African sculptures from the AGO's Frum Collection, chosen by Bey, are the first African objects he has put into one of his shows.

ArtAfrica called it "thoughtful, poetic, and politically urgent". It's one quiet room for slow looking and listening, on Level 2 (gallery 249), part of the 2026 Toronto Biennial, until 4 July 2027.