A call to reinvest the work’s production budget into community initiatives by establishing aid networks to disseminate resources to local affinity groups.

The Bentway as Hostile Architecture demands the reinvestment of the work’s $10,000.00 production budget into community initiatives, by establishing aid networks to disseminate resources to local affinity groups between October 2020 and June 2021 — in keeping with The Bentway’s fiscal year. This project questions the efficacy of temporary installation initiatives, and instead looks to divest power, platform, and space by prioritizing the agency of communities. It allows for self determination through ongoing, coordinated communication with BIPOC community leaders, those working with folks living in encampments, as well as other affinity groups who may otherwise seek aid to maintain their operations.

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About Phat Le & Benjamin de Boer
Phat Le and Benjamin de Boer took different paths to arrive at their current collaborative practice — Le is a student of architecture and de Boer is a poet. Their projects are united by their use of concrete. They embrace the material’s malleability and ubiquity, positioning it as an entry point for civic engagement; regarding the harmful implementation of hostile architecture and a lack of affordable housing in the city of Toronto.

About Safe in Public Space
Safe in Public Space is a multifaceted initiative that aims to broaden the definition of public safety to address new public health challenges presented by COVID as well as systemic inequities, and ensure that there is a shared social contract governing public space access and use.

How do we define public safety and for whom? Where are safety and accessibility at odds, and how can those conflicts lead to new creative solutions that reshape public space and give people the confidence to re-engage in the city without anxiety?

Through creative experiments on The Bentway’s physical and digital sites; images, ideas, writings, and dialogues from a diversity of collaborators; a new Public Space Fellowship program; and in-depth community consultations, Safe in Public Space aims to arrive at shareable learnings and best practices for spaces city-wide, as well as specific safety commitments for the future of The Bentway.

For more, visit safeinpublicspace.com.