Liz West has unveiled Anthems to Colour, a trio of colour-filled public installations across downtown Toronto, commissioned by the Luminato Festival and supported by Brookfield Properties. The site-specific works—Gridded Echo, Ascending Colour Frequency and Di
By late morning, the buildings around Brookfield Place start to look different—not because they’re being changed, but because light is being treated like material.
British artist Liz West has unveiled Anthems to Colour. a new series of public installations across downtown Toronto that turns the city’s glass-and-steel architecture into shifting fields of colour and reflection. The project is titled Anthems to Colour and consists of three large-scale. site-specific works commissioned by the Luminato Festival and supported by Brookfield Properties. The installations are installed across Brookfield Place, First Canadian Place and the Bay Adelaide Centre, running until 28 June.
West’s inspiration begins in the energy of 90s pop culture. She traces that decade’s music to the work’s conceptual starting point. but the installations remain grounded in the concerns that have shaped her practice for years. Working with coloured mirrors, transparent acrylic and refracted light, she builds environments that change as daylight moves across their surfaces. What you see isn’t fixed; it’s something you have to keep coming back for.
At Brookfield Place, Gridded Echo transforms the building’s architecture into a kaleidoscope of reflections. Ascending Colour Frequency responds to the surrounding skyline through panels arranged in a vertical structure. pulling the view upward and reframing it with colour. Elsewhere. Diffraction Tango explores iridescence—an effect West links to the rainbow sheen of petrol on wet pavement and the surface of a compact disc.
The point isn’t just spectacle. West’s work has long been interested in how colour changes our experience of space. and Anthems to Colour extends that inquiry into the public realm. These installations invite passers-by into a visual encounter shaped by weather and perspective. where the same corner can feel different in the afternoon light. In the steadiness of office towers. West adds the kind of playful surprise that pop culture can carry—colour arriving not as decoration. but as a new way to look.
For now. the city’s daily routes double as a gallery circuit: Brookfield Place. First Canadian Place and the Bay Adelaide Centre each becoming a site where light behaves like a performance. Until 28 June. Toronto’s downtown skyline doesn’t just host movement—it flashes. refracts. and remakes itself for anyone willing to notice the colours as they shift.
Liz West Anthems to Colour Luminato Festival Brookfield Properties public art Toronto coloured mirrors transparent acrylic refracted light Gridded Echo Ascending Colour Frequency Diffraction Tango 90s pop culture light installation
So they’re changing all the office building colors with mirrors? That sounds kinda cool tbh.
Wait I thought they were literally painting the buildings. Like glass and steel just magically “shifts”?? Either way, Toronto needs more fun stuff than whatever ads are always there.
I saw something about this and it’s basically 90s pop culture or whatever, but then it’s also mirrors and like… petrol rainbow on wet pavement? So is this art or just a marketing thing by Brookfield lol. Also “ascending colour frequency” sounds like WiFi channel names.
Not gonna lie, I don’t get the point. If it changes with daylight, then it’s not really “on purpose,” it’s just weather doing weather stuff. But I guess that’s the whole vibe? My cousin said it’s like a kaleidoscope inside the downtown buildings, but I don’t see why it has to be in all three locations. Until 28 June though so whatever, go take pictures I guess.