Dennis Hanagan –
The first Saturday in October will see streets and open spaces across Toronto light up at night for the city’s 20th annual Nuit Blanche.
On Oct. 3 and 4 from sunset to sunrise, more than 70 art projects will go on display mostly in and around downtown. But Long Branch in Etobicoke, up Yonge Street in North York and the Aga Khan Museum near Eglinton Avenue and the Don Valley will also participate.
A map of Nuit Blanche sites is available by visiting “All Art Projects” at the City of Toronto web site.
Nuit Blanche means “white night,” but has its origin in another kind of night – a knight in shining armour. In medieval France prospective knights spent the night before their dubbing ceremony dressed in white and praying.
Fittingly, Paris was the first to launch Nuit Blanche in 2002 to bring art out of museums and into public spaces for the public to see without charge. The nighttime backdrop gave artists an opportunity to add light to their creative toolbox.
Nuit Blanche spread to other cities and reached Toronto in 2006. Canadian cities hosting the event include Montreal, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon and Halifax. According to the City of Toronto’s website, Nuit Blanche is the largest contemporary art event in North America.
Over the past 20 years it has featured more than 1,800 art installations by more than 6,350 artists and generated more than $550 million for the local economy. It attracts more than one million attendees annually, 200,000 coming from outside the Greater Toronto Area.
This year’s theme, Tomorrow’s Memories, uses large-scale sculptures, projected digital imagery, audience interaction and live performances to explore how memories are created.
Everything and Nothing brings back a 2014 performance created by the late Kelly Mark, replicated at various sites including City Hall. It’s a dialogue between a man and a woman, each reading scripts of 100 phrases beginning with “everything” and “nothing.” One of the featured performers will be former Toronto mayor David Miller.
Avataq and Avataq Gathering by Inuk artist Couzyn van Heuvelen will be at Nathan Phillips Square and the Chelsea Hotel. It features a large, inflated foil sculpture that recreates the Avataq, a floating device made from sealskin used as a buoy to slow down large marine animals after they’ve been harpooned.
UFO by artist Brandon Vickerd at Queen Street and University Avenue is a large sculpture depicting a crashed flying saucer with smoke and strobe lights. Drawing on Cold War-era imagery, the work explores conspiracy theories, spectacle and the shared narratives that shape cultural identity.
Simile Aria by Maggy Hamel-Metsos at Old City Hall is a monumental sound installation in which the “angelic cries” of a pipe organ emerge from the metallic wail of industrial air compressors. A city press release says the exhibit traces “an evolutionary arc from pre-linguistic exclamation to operatic expression.”
I Miss You: T.Dot Memories by Francesca Nocera, also known as SUN SUN, is a 20- foot illuminated, inflatable cube at Queen and Bay Streets. It portrays beloved Toronto landmarks such as Honest Ed’s, Ontario Place, Sam the Record Man and MuchMusic. The work “reimagines disappearing community spaces as glowing monuments to collective memory and urban change.”
Deep Reverie by art collective Bitbrainz in the College Park courtyard immerses audiences in a “glowing dreamscape of UV-reactive tapestries and augmented reality.” Each diamond-shaped image reveals a different AI-generated dream of the future. Deep Reverie blends digital art, light and emerging technologies into a “luminous daydream.”
Ever Sick by SJ Okemow of the Bigstone Cree Nation is a projected interactive installation at Trinity Square next to Eaton Centre. Featuring the jingle dress dance, also known as the healing dance, the work is meant to be an inclusive space for people with disabilities and invisible illnesses. Visitors will be invited to move through the circle “in whatever ways their bodies allow,” says an Okemow.
