Passing

Unless you’re a teenager looking to loiter on the station’s empty platforms, or perhaps you got off too early en route to IKEA, chances are you haven’t ever set foot in Bessarion Station. Situated in the middle of the TTC’s Sheppard line, Bessarion isn’t exactly a destination for most commuters. The station opened 20 years ago as part of the Sheppard line extension, a billion-dollar project that was widely criticized for its high cost and questionable planning. However, the project is also notable for ushering in new ways of thinking about the role of public art in the city’s infrastructure. For each new station, a major artwork was commissioned, injecting some vitality into these otherwise transitory spaces.  

Bessarion Station in particular has taken on a mythic quality over the years, for those that have heard of it anyway. For many, it was the popular video “Finding Bessarion” from 2013 by urban enthusiast John Gape that brought the station into the public consciousness. In the video, he celebrates Bessarion as a sort of non-place, a station that is both underused and underappreciated. First asking himself if this obscure place even exists, he sets out to witness it with his own eyes. What he found was a sleek and modern station that seemed to have been “built yesterday,” with shiny red tiles, a monumental sense of spaciousness, and artwork lining the station walls.  

The artwork in question was Passing (2002) by Sylvie Bélanger, which depicts the diversity of cultures and social identities that one might encounter on public transit. For the piece, the artist took roughly 800 photographs, combined together into a composite tapestry. Mostly from the waist down, people from all walks of life are depicted: "groups of strollers, people in wheelchairs or with crutches or a cane, with grocery carriages, bags or bicycles, people alone or in groups, walking, running, waiting and meeting" (TTC, "Sheppard Subway Public Art Program 2002). 

The black and white frieze photography evokes the technological eye, the flattened perspective of a surveillance camera, yet at the same time conjures the energy of a Mario Giacomelli photograph. There’s an intense fixation on movement, gesture, and the choreography of the crowd. In a station nearly devoid of actual commuters, however, the images take on a somewhat ghostly quality. Still, the photographs are transfixing, playfully voyeuristic, and occasionally quite funny. While it’s normally not polite to stare at fellow passengers, the images are an invitation to observe, from a distance, the gestures of the immortalized commuters.  

Although Downsview Park has now marginally surpassed Bessarion as the “least-used” metro station on the TTC, there are still few signs of life at Bessarion–not even a toll collector was present on the day of my recent visit. Although the nearby Concorde developments have ushered in thousands of new residents, the reality remains that this area is essentially car-centric. Stepping out of the station, the high-decibel roar of the nearby highway is unmistakably present. The platforms of Bessarion may be waiting in vain for commuters to flood in. In any case, it’s a strangely charming place to visit, and now a sort of public gallery for artist Sylvie Belanger, who sadly passed away in 2020. Whether you intend to make a pilgrimage to the station, or simply find yourself riding the purple line, Bessarion is most definitely a place worth passing through.