Art Nest 2026 is a Gift
A Forwards Retreat
Dear Friend of TOAF,
Art Nest 2026 is a true gift.
When I invited Rui Pimenta to curate this year’s program as the signature project of TOAF’s 65th birthday, the process itself moved us. Our imaginations expanded through deeply reflective, thoughtful conversations with Rui and with artists who have been incredibly generous in spirit.
This Art Nest is the icing on the cake of a long relationship TOAF has had with Rui over many years, bringing together a roster of celebrated Canadian artists: Peggy Baker, Max Dean, Naomi Dodds, Micah Lexier and Ed Pien, who are, in turn, gifting their life’s work to our community.
Rui speaks beautifully about his vision and what each artist is bringing to the table.
We’re sharing this with you now, so it can breathe before the full Fair of 400+ artists who will join the stage this summer for the grand celebration. We hope you take your time with it, and sit with each artist’s practice. Tender moments and surprises will be waiting for you.
Art Nest 2026 will reward the anticipation.
With gratitude,
anahita azrahimi
Executive & Creative Director
Rui on Art Nest 2026
It is an honour to be working with artists Peggy Baker, Max Dean, Naomi Dodds, Micah Lexier, and Ed Pien on this year’s edition of the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair as it marks its 65th anniversary, a milestone that invites both celebration and reflection.
When I was invited to curate the Art Nest program, I was drawn not only to the Fair’s longevity, but to the symbolic weight of the number itself. Sixty-five is commonly associated with retirement, a threshold that signals the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. However, the etymology of retirement suggests not simply stopping, but a withdrawal, a drawing back, an active “retreat” into contemplation rather than cessation.
This prompted a series of questions that shape this exhibition’s curatorial framework: What does retirement mean for an artist? How does one retreat from a practice that is not merely a profession, but a core part of one’s identity? What can we learn from artists, particularly those 65 or older, about time, continuity, and creative life? And how do we reconcile these reflections with the reality that, for many artists, retirement in its traditional sense is not financially possible?
In my work as a curator, I have had the privilege of collaborating with artists across generations, and one insight has become increasingly clear: for many, what they do is far more than a job, it is a vocation in the truest sense, a “calling”. The work an artist does resists neat endings. It evolves, adapts, and carries forward traces of earlier selves, shaped through time, memory, and accumulated experience.
Thank you,
Rui Pimenta, Art Nest 2026
Rui on the works of: Peggy Baker, Max Dean, Naomi Dodds, Micah Lexier & Ed Pien
“Many of the works in this exhibition extend beyond individual authorship towards concerns for exchange, participation, and distribution, where meaning is activated through others; whether through performance, public engagement, or the transfer of ownership. In doing so, they challenge the fixity of the art object, reframing it as something lived with, cared for, or dispersed. These works also engage reflection in both a perceptual and psychological sense, where meaning emerges through layered time and lived experience.
While retirement is often framed as closure, the artists in this exhibition complicate this narrative. Their works resist finality, instead embracing transformation and continuity. Identity and practice are understood as relational–formed through time, place, and repetition–where earlier iterations are built upon and carried forward. Retirement becomes less an end than a shift in pace, focus, or perception, opening space for reflection and renewed forms of making.
As we reflect on 65 years of the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, this exhibition invites you not only to look back, but to consider how artistic practice endures, across time, across life stages, and beyond conventional definitions of work. If retirement marks a threshold, then through the lens of the artist, it is less an ending than an ongoing transformation, a state in which the calling to create continues to unfold.”
Rui Pimenta is a visual artist and curator working across Canada and internationally. He founded Art Spin in 2009, now in its 16th year of site-specific, multidisciplinary programming, best known for its bicycle art tours. His curatorial practice is rooted in creating engaging, accessible ways to present art in public space.
Calder on his experience with Art Nest
“Over the past five years, it has been an incredible privilege to work as Technical Director for Art Nest. It is a joy to help to bring ambitious sculptural installations to life and push the boundaries of creativity and technical execution. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with such an inspiring curator and collection of artists for the 65th iteration of TOAF.”
