Nuit Blanche

Every year in early October, the city of Toronto organizes a free, all night art event called Nuit Blanche in partnership with Scotia Bank. Nuit Blanche translates to "white night". The event aims to make contemporary art accessible to the masses, in one large festival. Nuit Blanche in Toronto was first introduced in 2006, and has since showcased 850 art projects from local, national and international artists. The event starts at 6 p.m. and runs till 6 a.m. It is all throughout the downtown core in Toronto, in public spaces and various buildings. Nuit Blanche originates Paris, France where the festival began in 2002. Today Nuit Blanche is based in over 25 cities internationally, but Toronto was the first city to replicate the event in North America.

Nuit Blanche 2013 took place on October 5th and 6th. Three of the major projects are as follows.

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei created an outdoor installation in Nathan-Philips Square called "Forever Bicycles". The installation was a massive sculpture consisting of 3,144 interlocking bicycles.

French artist Boris Achour created an installation in Nathan-Phillips Square called "the rose is without why". A short poem by German poet Angelus Silesuis was spelled out in neon light which spanned over 300 feet.

Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata created an installation called "Garden Tower in Toronto" in front of the Metropolitan United Church on Queen Street East. The tower consisted of various pieces of wooden furniture.

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Toronto based [R]ed[U]x Lab created a light installation called "Ad Astra" at the Bata Shoe museum .

Toronto Based Nathan Whitford, John Farah, and Sarah Keenlyside and London, UK Based Konstantinos Mavromichalis created a light and sound installation called "lightbridge" at the Puente de Luz bridge. Watch a video of the installation here.

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These were just three of the installations I saw at Nuit Blanche. There were many other excellent installations that I couldn't find information and-or photos of on the internet. A list of most of the projects involved with Nuit Blanche 2013 can be found on their website. 

I have been to 4 of the 7 Nuit Blanches in Toronto. I went with my parents for the first two, and with friend's for the last two. I definitely prefer to be with a group of people in my age group. Nuit Blanche attracts people of all ages and walks of life. But theres definitely a youthful presence at the festival. Some of the projects this year were really good, others were a bit disappointing. I'd like to see more installations in neighbourhoods like Queen Street West, Kensington Market, and Parkdale. I don't feel a creative vibe in the downtown core of Toronto as I do in those neighbourhoods. Also, it would be nice if the installations were a little more spread out.

I had a lot of fun this year with my friends. We saw excellent contemporary art from some of the greatest artists in the world. However this years Nuit Blanche definitely had it's downsides. There were definitely more people in the streets than I have ever experienced before, and it was extremely hard to move around without having to push through crowds of people. I also witnessed a lot of ignorant, intoxicated people. I understand that it is an all night event and people want to drink, but are you really enjoying the art if your inebriated and falling over? I definitely had some really annoying encounters over the course of the night. To add to that it began raining at about 2 a.m., which was unfortunate for me because I was about 5 kilometres from where I was staying at the time.

All together it was a good night. Hopefully next year will be just as good, if not better!


-SFH