Toronto is a city jam-packed with amazing cultural offerings, but every once in a while something comes along that turns the whole city itself into the attraction. Enter Nuit Blanche Toronto, the wonderfully weird, wildly imaginative, stay-up-way-past-your-bedtime celebration of contemporary art that returns this upcoming Saturday, October 3rd. From 7pm Saturday until 7am Sunday, Toronto’s streets, civic spaces, cultural institutions, parking garages and unexpected corners will become one enormous free art exhibition. And this year is a biggie: Nuit Blanche is celebrating its 20th anniversary!
Since launching in Toronto in 2006, Nuit Blanche has become one of those events that really captures what we love about living in this city. Where else can you wander downtown after midnight and stumble upon a giant sculpture, an immersive sound installation, a dance performance or something so delightfully peculiar you’re not entirely sure what you just experienced — but you’re awfully glad you saw it? Over the past two decades, Nuit Blanche has presented almost 1,800 installations by roughly 6,350 artists, inviting Torontonians to experience familiar streets and public spaces from an entirely different perspective. It’s creative, unpredictable, democratic and — one of our favourite words — free.
Appropriately, the theme for this milestone year is Tomorrow’s Memories, which looks back at the artists, communities and places that have shaped Nuit Blanche while also asking us to consider where Toronto — and its creative culture — might be headed next. More than 70 projects by local, national and international artists will be scattered around the city, including both new commissions and the return of memorable works from Nuit Blanches past. Look for everything from a crashed UFO at Queen Street West and University Avenue, to a glowing tribute to lost Toronto landmarks like Honest Ed’s and Sam the Record Man, to art taking over Nathan Phillips Square, Old City Hall and even the underground parking garage at City Hall. In other words, expect the unexpected.
Beyond being enormously fun, Nuit Blanche is also a pretty spectacular reminder of just how rich Toronto’s cultural life is. We’re home to painters, sculptors, performers, musicians, filmmakers, designers, makers and creative thinkers from every corner of the planet — and events like this give them something incredibly valuable: an audience. Supporting artists doesn’t necessarily mean buying a painting or attending a gala. Sometimes it simply means showing up, experiencing their work, talking about it, sharing it, and allowing yourself to see the city through somebody else’s eyes. Better still, Nuit Blanche turns art into a shared civic experience, removing the museum walls and putting creativity right in the middle of everyday Toronto life.
So grab a friend, wear comfortable shoes, caffeinate accordingly and go wandering! You don’t have to understand every installation, see every project or make it all the way to sunrise — although full marks if you do. Pick a few destinations, follow the crowds, take a detour when something catches your eye and enjoy seeing Toronto get gloriously strange for one night.
In a city blessed with an extraordinary buffet of arts, culture, food, architecture, neighbourhoods and people, Nuit Blanche is one of those quintessentially Toronto experiences that reminds us just how much there is to love about living here. And if you find yourself standing in front of a flashing spaceship at two in the morning wondering, “Is this art?” — well, that may be precisely the point.