An exhibition title inspired by a popular rap rivalry, and a hub led by disabled artists are engaging features for Nuit Blanche’s return on Oct. 4 at 7 p.m.
Nuit Blanche is a contemporary art festival that involves artists, institutions and curators from all over the world to transform Toronto during a twelve hour night shift.
Charlene K. Lau, curator of the downtown exhibition for Nuit Blanche, reminisces about going to the first ever Nuit Blanche about two decades ago.
“Originally, it was more situated downtown, but then they started to have sites in Etobicoke, Scarborough, and every year it changes,” Lau told Now Toronto.
This year’s exhibitions are centered around Humber Polytechnic Lakeshore campus in Etobicoke, Mel Lastman Square in North York, and City Hall to Chinatown, downtown.
The siting of work is a process. “Sometimes, artists have an idea for a space or have an idea [for a project] but aren’t sure of the right fit, so there’s collaboration involved with the local community, with the artists, and with the City of Toronto that happens,” Artistic Director of Nuit Blanche Laura Nanni told Now Toronto, who was also an artist in the first Nuit Blanche in 2006.
Physical locations are planned in the year before the festival and works often respond to the history and unique architecture of particular neighborhoods or spaces in Toronto, according to Nanni.
“There’s a magic that happens in [12 hours]. You can do things you may not be able to do for an extended period and it transforms both public spaces and cultural sites in unexpected ways,” Nanni said.
Lau will be reinventing the downtown area into her exhibition “Poetic Justice,” – named both after last summer’s Drake and Kendrick beef as well as the 90’s film starring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur.
“It’s about coming back together but also thinking about poetry in visual ways, such as reform efforts, advocacy, and political resistance, especially those from Chinatown and Indigenous communities,” Lau said.
As the Artistic Director for the past two years, Nanni prioritizes access, participation, and experiential components to keep the festival evolving.
On September 21, A Midday Gathering previewed some of the artists and themes relevant in this year’s Nuit Blanche, there are other programming opportunities available for the public to enjoy before and after the event.
“Nuit Blanche is a contemporary public art festival. Public art is meant to be for the public and meant to be free and so it wouldn’t have the same scale or meaning if it was paid for. It’s really at the core that the festival is for everyone and that it’s accessible,” Lau said.
While Lau’s “Poetic Justice” sets the tone downtown, Nanni’s exhibition, “Collective Composition,” based in North York, expands Nuit Blanche’s reach, both in person and online, with “The Nuit Blanche Remote Access Hub;” a project led by Tangled Art + Disability.
Sean Lee, Director of Programming at Tangled Art + Disability, spoke about a performance entitled, “Let me get you an orange” during the Midday Gathering, as part of his preview of the Remote Access Hub project.
“I was peeling oranges for folks from the disability community. This simple gesture was to talk about how we interpret acts of care, the labor of care differently,” Lee told Now Toronto, gesturing to dried orange peels on a table amongst an array of various items.
Lee used an orange cutter to create a flower shape from the peels, but they all dried in different shapes and colours from one another.
As a disabled artist coming from a Chinese family, Lee was accustomed to seeing different acts of care as love, such as peeling an orange, rather than being told he was loved.
“These oranges are meant to symbolize the different ways we care for one another and that’s our overall project here at Nuit Blanche….Historically, it’s not been very accessible for folks from the disability community and one thing a lot of folks have asked for is a remote, virtual option,” Lee said.
The remaining items on the table were a pair of headphones, a pen, a squishy slug, a textile doll, and sunglasses, or what are known as “stim toys.”
“Stim toys allow folks to regulate their sensory needs and this is something we wanted to bring to our physical hub, which is part of the remote access hub. People will be able to tune into the livestream and be in community, regulate through stim toys, and have a quiet space in what is usually a busy festival,” Lee elaborated.
Rather than sticking to the traditional narrative that art is therapeutic for disabled folks, Lee believes disability is good for art.
“Being able to have folks from the disability community leading a project is really impactful because we’ll know disabled folks are not just perceiving the art experience, but we are producers,” Lee said.
