hearn toronto

Abandoned Toronto power plant to become arts hub

For its tenth year, Toronto's Luminato Festival will be holding all of its ticketed programming at the Hearn Generating Station.

Located in the Portlands on the east side of the city, the Hearn is a decommissioned power plant. Last year, Luminato held its opening gala as well as the Unsound Festival there. I attended the latter event and wandering around the massive and slightly eery space was definitely the highlight of my night.

Come June 2016, the space will become a temporary home to a myriad of events. "In the Hearn Generating Station we will create the world's largest multidisciplinary generator of art and culture, offering a globally unique, exceptionally rich and highly integrated cultural experience," says Luminato's artistic director Jorn Weisbrodt in a blog post.

According to Weisbrodt's post, the Hearn will not only play host to performance spaces and galleries, but also to a restaurant and club.

Since the Hearn is rather difficult to access without a car, the festival will be working out some sort of transportation system for patrons.

Luminato happenings will unfold in other parts of the city as well. And the 2016 festival hub will move from David Pecaut Square to the public plaza outside of Union Station.

While Luminato hasn't revealed its 2016 roster yet, it'll be interesting to see how the 10-year-old festival transforms the Hearn into a veritable arts and cultural space.

Photo by Big Daddy Hame in the blogTO Flickr pool.


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