Future of Creativity + Compassion
APF x OCAD U
August 15, 16, and 17, 2025

OCAD University – Waterfront Campus
Floor 4R at 130 Queens Quay E, Toronto, ON M5A 0P6

Welcome to Toronto! We are the host city for the 2025 APF x OCAD Nexus Gathering! We’re thrilled to welcome you to Toronto—as you prepare for your visit, we’ve curated essential details to help make your stay seamless, inspiring, and connected.

This is a lengthy page, jump to the part you need.

Accommodations

We recommend these places to stay.

• The Planet Traveler Hostel
  • 357 College St, Toronto ON M5T 1S5, Canada
  • Distance to Conference: 4.5km, 20 min drive, 1 hour walk to the Nexus event, easy by Public transit.
  • One of the first Eco-friendly hostels internationally, relatively inexpensive and ethically minded.
  • Book here
• The Westin Harbour Castle
  • 1 Harbour Square, Toronto, CA M5J 1A6
  • Distance to Conference: 1.2km, 15 min walk to the Nexus event, a bus goes right there too.
  • A standard hotel accommodation 
  • Book here

Conference Parking

If you’re bringing a car.

Underground parking is available onsite. Parking entrance is on Richardson Street (east of side of the building).

The conference is at The OCADU Waterfront Campus
130 Queens Quay E Tower, Floor 4R, Toronto, ON M5A 0P6

Parking rate:
Daily max (in between 7:30 AM – 5:00 PM out by 7:00 PM): $18.00 Evening max (5:00 PM – 5:00 AM): $10.00

Getting Around

What you can expect for moving your way through the city.

• Airport, to and from
  • UP Express Fares

FARE TYPE	ONE-WAY	ROUND-TRIP
Adult (13-64)	$12.35	$24.70
Senior (65+)	$6.20	$12.40
Group Pass(3-5 people travelling together to/from Pearson Airport only)	$25.00 (3 people) $32.50 (4 people) $40.00 (5 people) Available online only	N/A

• Public Transit
  • Toronto’s public transport system (TTC) is a great way to get around the city. There is an integrated network of buses, subway, and streetcars (trams) covering the city. 
  • TTC Day Pass: $13.50 for unlimited travel (bus, subway, streetcar)
  • Single Fare: $3.30 (presto card), $3.35 (cash/debit/credit)
  • Presto Cards: Available at stations and Shoppers Drug Mart locations
  • Union station (major transit hub) is just a 10 min walk from the venue, and connects to GO trains, UP Express (airport rail), and TTC.

Entertainment

Some highlights of what Toronto has to offer in the month of August.

• Toronto Island
  • August on the Toronto Islands is a great mix of adventure and relaxation: hop on a ferry from downtown and rent a bike (or bring your own) to explore winding trails, beaches, and scenic viewpoints with the skyline as your backdrop. Paddle around by canoe or kayak to enjoy calm waters and stunning views of Gibraltar Point Lighthouse and marinas on Centre and Ward’s Islands.
  • Ferry schedule
  • Water taxis
• St. Lawrence Market
  • “one of the world’s great markets”
    
    “For each of our 120 vendors, merchants and artisans, the Market is their life’s work. Their pride, care and singular passion is the reason, 208 years later, the Market continues to thrive.
    The Market is a place where the authenticity of truly great food and shopkeepers who care reign above all else.”
  • Schedule
• Harbourfront Centre
  • “Toronto’s waterfront community campus for arts, culture, learning and recreation.”
  • Exhibition schedule
• UpFRONT Festival of Indigenous Arts, Music and Culture
  
  A free outdoor festival featuring Susan Aglukark, Sebastian Gaskin, Shawnee Kish, Adrian Harjo, Wolf Castle, and more. Join us for three days of extraordinary music, dance, puppetry, a visuals arts showcase, an artisan market, and a special month-long arts exhibition.
  • Music
    • Adrian Harjo concert | Scott Street stage
      • Aug 15, Fri 7pm
    • Classic Roots DJ set | Scott Street stage
      • Aug 15 Fri 8pm
    • Wolf Castle concert | Berczy Park stage
      • Aug 16 Sat 6:30pm
    • Sebastian Gaskin concert | Scott Street stage
      • Aug 16 Sat 8pm
    • Kaeley Jade concert | Berczy Park stage
      • Aug 17 Sun 5:30pm
    • Susan Aglukark concert | Scott Street stage
      • Aug 17 Sun 7pm
  • Art
    • Located in St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, Bluma Appel lobby.
      • Aug 15, Fri : 4 – 9 pm
        Aug 16 Sat: 10 am – 9 pm
        Aug 17 Sun: 10 am – 7 pm
  • Artisan Marketplace
    • Located in Berczy Park.
      • Aug 15, Fri : 4:30 – 8 pm
        Aug 16 Sat: 10 am – 6 pm
        Aug 17 Sun: 10 am – 6 pm
  • Festival Patio
    • Located outside Meridian Hall, at Scott Street.
      • Aug 15, Fri : 7 – 9 pm
        Aug 16 Sat: 1 – 9 pm
        Aug 17 Sun: 12 – 8 pm
• Onsite Gallery
  • Rosalie Favell: Facing the Camera: TSÍ TKARÒN:TO
    • May 1 – November 30, 2025
    • “Presented as a unique, large-scale, outdoor installation on the façade of Onsite Gallery, Rosalie Favell’s TSÍ TKARÒN:TO comprises a suite of photographs selected from the Ottawa-based Red River Metis artist’s renowned portrait series Facing the Camera, a monumental national and international visual archive documenting the broad diversity of Indigenous arts and cultural communities. This iteration features a curated selection of photographs taken over three open-invitation sessions, hosted by the university’s Indigenous Visual Culture program during Favell’s 2016 tenure as Nigig Artist in Residence at the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD U) in tsi Tkaròn:to.”
  • Rosalie Favell | Belonging (1982-2024)
    • June 18 – December 6, 2025
    • ”Belonging is the first retrospective of renowned Red River Métis artist Rosalie Favell, showcasing a powerful curated selection of her lend-based works from 1982 to 2024. This exhibition celebrates Favell’s groundbreaking photographic practice—from seminal series like Living Evidence and Plain(s) Warrior Artist to her expansive archive Facing the Camera—which invites us to bear witness and explore the complex themes of identity, empowerment, same-sex desire, community and the nuanced search for belonging through a lens that is both deeply personal and subtly subversive.”
• Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)
  • Recuerdo: Latin American Photography at the AGO
    • On Now until October 19, 2025
    • “Highlighting new acquisitions and unseen works from the AGO’s Photography Collection, this poetic exhibition takes visitors on a journey from Mexico to Argentina, from the 1920s to today. “Recuerdo,” which in Spanish can mean both “memory” and “I remember,” – reflects the exhibition’s unique display of collective and personal stories, while exploring what it means to consider art of and from Latin America. Juxtaposing photographs from press collections as well as works by artists once known and noted photographers, including Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Tina Modotti, this exhibition is curated by AGO Curatorial Assistant Marina Dumont-Gauthier.”
  • Light Years: The Phil Lind Gift
    • On Now until November 2, 2025
    • “A prodigious collector of contemporary art, the late Phil Lind (1943-2023) was drawn to artworks that illuminated social and political histories. An enthusiastic supporter of what has since come to be known as the Vancouver school of conceptual photography, this exhibition features works by noted Vancouver-born artists Stan Douglas, Rodney Graham, Ron Terada and Jeff Wall. Complementing these lens-based works – some intimate, some large-scale light boxes, some multimedia – are paintings, photographs and sculptures by Thomas Demand, William Eggleston, Antony Gormley, Philip Guston, William Kentridge, Thomas Ruff, Laurie Simmons, Wolfgang Tillmans and Ai Weiwei. This exhibition is curated by AGO’s Curator of Modern Art Adam Welch.”
  • Moments in Modernism
    • On Now until March 7, 2026
    • “Moments in Modernism highlights the diversity and high quality of the AGO’s modern art collection, which has been built over time by generations of museum curators and patrons. 
    • This installation will show collection strengths from artistic movements such as Pop Art, Abstraction, Realism, and Minimalism.  An international approach in artistic styles will be presented, including a body of work from the AGO holdings by Brazilian artists, recognizing the global nature of modernism. A selection of contemporary works that respond to modernist movements will also be shown. 
    • Many of the artists, including Andy Warhol, Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski, Gerhard Richter, and Mark Rothko are well known while others are still yet to be broadly recognized such as Tomie Ohtake, Rubem Valentim, Gene Davis and Kazuo Nakamura. A particular focus will be Canadian artists including Alex Colville, Rita Letendre, Jack Bush, Agnes Martin, Guido Molinari and Norval Morrisseau.
    • Moments in Modernism features artworks that will form the cornerstone for the expansion of the new Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery, starting construction in 2024.  The new building is being designed by architects Diamond Schmitt, Selldorf Architects and Two Row Architect to showcase the AGO’s growing collection of modern and contemporary art.”
  • Tim Whiten: A Little Bit of Light
    • On Now until August 17, 2025
    • “Recipient of the 2022 Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the AGO, American-born, Toronto based artist Tim Whiten, has, for almost five decades, fashioned a powerful visual language all his own. Drawing upon various spiritual traditions, mythologies, and rituals, Whiten’s work evades easy categorization, manifesting itself in ways that are spellbinding and technically profound.The more than 30 works on display range from works on paper and cotton, to sculpture, other three-dimensional objects, and mixed media installations.  The exhibition features many of the artist’s most essential works, made with organic matter such as leather, bone, and stone, and precarious materials such as glass and crystal.”
  • Painted Presence: Rembrandt and his Peers
    • On Now until February 1, 2026
    • “From the Bader Collection at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the AGO welcomes a remarkable selection of seventeenth century Dutch paintings. Shown in dialogue with paintings from the AGO’s European Collection of Art, at the centre of this focused installation are seven artworks attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), shown together for the first time. Featuring intensely observed still life paintings, detailed interiors and mesmerizing portraits, these striking artworks offer a rare glimpse of Dutch artistry at work. This exhibition is co-curated by Adam Harris Levine, AGO Associate Curator European Art and Suzanne van de Meerendonk, Bader Curator of European Art, Agnes Etherington Art Centre.”
• Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)
  • Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away.
    • Jan 10, 2025 to Sep 1, 2025
    • “An unprecedented exhibition that examines the history and legacy of Auschwitz.Created by Nazi Germany, the most significant site of the Holocaust, Auschwitz, was not a single entity. It gradually became a system of camps that combined two functions: a concentration camp and a killing centre in which some 1 million Jews — and tens of thousands of others, including Poles, Romani people, and Soviet POWs — were detained and murdered in a systematic and industrialized fashion. This powerful exhibition, which arrives in Toronto just ahead of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 2025, explores the dual identity of the Auschwitz camp as a physical setting — the largest documented mass murder site in human history — and as a symbol of the borderless manifestation of hatred and human atrocity.”
  • Nature in Brilliant Colour
    • Dec 14, 2024 to Aug 17, 2025
    • “Marvel at the power of colour in the natural world.
    • Anywhere you look in nature, colour holds meaning. From the fiery reds of warning to the soothing blues of calm waters, Nature in Brilliant Colour will take you on a kaleidoscopic journey through the vibrant hues of our planet.  
    • Awaken your senses, and have your perception forever altered, as you make your way through a series of spaces, each dedicated to a colour of the rainbow. Through over 200 specimens, photo-worthy projections, and shifting soundscapes, this exhibition promises to be a transformative experience that will deepen appreciation for the complex artistry of our world and celebrate its vivid and untamed beauty.”
  • Connection Stations
    • Mar 7, 2025 to Sep 1, 2025
    • ”How do our experiences shape our perceptions?
    • ROM Connection Stations invite you to reflect on Museum objects to build a deeper understanding of the world and how others may experience it.
    • How does your personal background shape your perceptions? How can current interpretations differ from when an object was produced? How could other people view the same object?
    • These interactive stations can be enjoyed alone or with other guests and invite visitors to share in a collective conversation to recognize biases, consider the impact of perceptions, and foster greater understanding.
    • Stations are equipped with Braille and QR codes to enable greater accessibility.”
  • Chinese Zodiac Case: Year of the Snake
    • Nov 26, 2024 to Nov 1, 2025
    • “As part of our annual zodiac installation, January 29, 2025 ushers in the Year of the Snake (蛇), the sixth animal in the Chinese zodiac. Those born under this sign are believed to be wise and charismatic.
    • The snake rarely appears as a decorative motif in Chinese art and design, however, when depicted with a tortoise, the pair have come to symbolize the mythical creature Xuanwu (玄武, the Dark Warrior), later evolving into the god Zhenwu (真武, the Perfected Warrior). The snake and tortoise symbolize the interplay of power, wisdom, and harmony of nature.
    • Experience an exquisite array of snake and tortoise-themed objects and cultural belongings in this specially curated zodiac case. Marvel at impressive ceramics, including a mythical double-headed serpent from the early 500s. This and much more are now on view in this unique display celebrating the powerful snake.”

August 15, 16, and 17, 2025

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