Sankofa Square Digital Art

Neighbourhood: Downtown · Address: 1 Dundas St E, Toronto, ON · Hours: Open 24 hours · Price Range: Free

Why Visit

The massive digital screens at Sankofa Square don't just blast ads—they regularly display cutting-edge works from Toronto's digital artists, turning the streetscape into a pop-up gallery worth pausing for, especially after dark.

What Makes It Unique

Unlike most public art in Toronto, this program uses the square’s colossal commercial billboards to showcase digital artists alongside advertising—where else in the city do local artists compete for attention with global brands on such a massive scale? Rotating exhibitions mean there’s often something new to catch your eye, and the program highlights works you won't find in traditional galleries.

If you want to see a side of downtown Toronto that feels a little raw, a little theatrical, and sometimes surprisingly thoughtful, go to Sankofa Square after dark and look up. A lot of people think of it as Toronto’s Times Square, and honestly, that’s not a bad shorthand if you’re just trying to picture the place: huge LED screens, flashing ads, crowds drifting in every direction, street noise bouncing off tall buildings, the occasional busker trying to be heard over the traffic, and that constant downtown energy that never really settles down. But what makes the square worth your time isn’t the advertising. It’s the fact that mixed into all that commercial noise is an actual public art program, and it changes the whole feel of the intersection if you know where to look.

The digital art program, YoungDundas ART, puts work by local artists on more than 30 screens around the square throughout the year. That means you can be standing in the middle of one of the busiest corners in the country and suddenly see something intimate and strange stretched across a massive billboard. It might be a slow-moving abstract animation, a close-up portrait, a piece built from text and image, or something quietly conceptual that feels almost out of place in a spot like this. That tension is what makes it interesting. The scale is absurd, in the best possible way. A work that might feel delicate on a laptop or in a gallery gets blown up across ten metres of glass and steel, and it ends up competing with the city instead of hiding from it. You don’t usually get that kind of contrast in public art, especially not in the middle of downtown.

It’s best after dark, no question. In daylight, the square can feel pretty blunt and commercial, almost aggressively so. The buildings don’t soften the mood, and if you’re just passing through on a weekday afternoon, it can feel like a place designed for movement rather than lingering. But once the sun goes down, the screens take over and the whole area turns into its own light source. Reflections hit the glass towers, car windows flash by, and if it’s rained recently, the pavement starts acting like a mirror too. The art becomes part of a bigger visual overload, but in a way that’s more engaging than exhausting. If you like night photography, this is one of the easiest places in Toronto to get dramatic shots without having to stage anything. You’ll get layered signage, silhouettes crossing the frame, the odd street performer, the Eaton Centre crowd spilling out, and then suddenly a piece of digital art appearing where you’d normally expect a sneaker ad or a phone launch.

What actually happens there changes by the hour. Early in the evening, the square is usually in full motion. Tourists are taking photos in the middle of the intersection, people are meeting friends on the steps, workers are cutting through on their way home, and there’s usually some mix of music, shouting, and the general chatter of a downtown crowd that’s not quite done for the day. As it gets later, the square can feel looser and a bit more watchable. You’re not necessarily getting solitude, because this is never a quiet place, but you can stand still long enough to actually follow a piece on the screen as it changes. That’s when the art lands best for me. You start noticing how the work holds up against the rest of the square, and how weirdly effective it is to put something personal or reflective in the middle of all this commercial intensity. The city doesn’t stop for the art, and that’s part of why it works.

The neighbourhood context matters too. You’re right beside the Eaton Centre, Dundas subway station, and a huge stretch of downtown where people are constantly commuting, shopping, eating, loitering, meeting up, and passing through. This isn’t a polished plaza where everyone arrives with one specific goal. It’s more chaotic than that. Students cross through on their way to somewhere else, office workers take shortcuts, visitors stop because the screens are impossible to ignore, and local teens often use the steps and edges of the square as a place to hang out. There’s always a mix of movement and pause. That’s also what makes the public art feel different from the usual screen-based stuff in other cities. It isn’t isolated in a museum, and it isn’t tucked away in a calm corner of a park. It’s deliberately inserted into one of the loudest, busiest parts of downtown, where it has to compete with ads, traffic, and the general pace of the city. That friction gives it a lot of its energy.

If you’re going specifically for the art, don’t just stand in the middle and assume you’ve seen it. Walk the perimeter. Look up from different corners. Some works read better from one side than another, and the surrounding buildings change how the screens feel depending on where you’re standing. The intersection’s scale can actually be a little disorienting if you’re not used to it, so give yourself at least 20 or 30 minutes to wander and watch a few rotations. If you’re taking photos, a slightly overcast evening or right after rain can be ideal because the reflections add a lot without making the screens unreadable. If you’re just there to take it in, don’t expect a calm viewing experience. There’s no real “sit back and enjoy” mode here. The best strategy is to move around slowly, let the square keep doing its thing, and wait for the moment when a piece of art lands just right against the noise around it.

It’s free, open 24 hours, and very easy to get to since it’s right at 1 Dundas Street East, directly above Dundas subway station. That convenience is part of the reason the square is always active, but it also means you should expect crowds basically whenever you go. Even late at night, there’s usually some foot traffic, and on busy weekends it can feel packed. If you hate standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers, choose a quieter weekday evening instead of Friday or Saturday. If you’re hoping to really see the screens without constantly dodging people, don’t show up at the exact same time as the end of a big event or the usual rush around the station. There’s no secret empty hour, but there are better and worse moments. Weeknights after the dinner rush tend to be the easiest.

New Year’s Eve is the one time I’d tell almost anyone to make the trip, even if the square usually isn’t your scene. The projections on the surrounding buildings can get huge, and the whole thing feels extra over-the-top in the best way. The scale gets almost ridiculous, which is exactly why it works. It’s one of the few moments when the square stops feeling like an ad district and starts feeling like the city briefly decided to treat the entire intersection as a public screen. That’s really the appeal here: not that it’s perfect, not that it’s calm, but that it takes a place built for commerce and traffic and gives local artists a way to interrupt it. When the work is good, the contrast is genuinely striking. And even when it’s just the square being the square, there’s still something worth looking at.