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Revel in an Urban Masterpiece at Nuit Blanche

Published by Kristin Cowles, Editor-in-Chief

Country: Canada

The Experience

An art all nighter at its best! The contemporary art festival Nuit Blanche, is an ingenious and accessible work of art, set along the city streets in the buzzing metropolis of Toronto. This meticulously orchestrated masterpiece takes shape throughout Toronto's museums, coffee shops, galleries, parks, and just about anywhere else you can think of. 2008 marked Toronto's third year of celebrating Nuit Blanche, a festival which originated in Paris. Hundreds of artists gather from around the world to turn Toronto into their artistic playground for one sleepless night, with hundreds of installments ranging from waterfalls of plastic, to sculpted book mosaics, to a flooded bay street building with massive fish floating through the front windows. Zone A entitled New World engaged the city's public spaces and landmarks on a large scale, adapting their surfaces for video projections, interactive performances, and digital manipulation. Zone B entitled Honest focused on performing art events and installations in spaces that blurred the lines between artist/performer and audience member. Zone C featured two curated exhibitions, Sivanesan’s exhibit of seven provocative installations exploring the dark and unsettling side of cultural diversity, and Dyment’s exhibit of eight installations that delved into the concepts of hope. Nuit Blanche promises to impress even the most amateur art connoisseur, and brings to life the great community of Toronto. Friends wander the streets exploring new neighbourhoods, grabbing pints in surprising and new resto bars. The possibilities of new places, people and experiences to find on this night are endless!

Photos

Map

Puzzle

When to Go to Nuit Blanche Toronto

Nuit Blanche is held for one evening from dusk till dawn typically between late September and early October. The scale of the event makes access quite easy as it sprawls throughout the majority of the city. Subway and streetcar transport run all night to ensure proper transportation is available to all the stops on your agenda. If you visit the official site you can find a copy of the program and a map listing all exhibit locations. There is no cost to participate, merely roam the city's streets and start enjoying some amazing contemporary art!

More Experiences Nearby

Skate Nathan Phillips Square
Winter may not seem like Toronto's best season. Walking through the downtown core in the winter months usually means bundling up in heavy coats and mitts, and fighting bitter winds whipping in from off the lake while trudging through heavy slush. But there are a few oases of magic throughout the city where winter is transformed from something to be battled to something to be savoured... places like Nathan Phillips Square. Nathan Phillips Square is a busy urban plaza in the heart of the city. Located in front of Toronto’s City Hall on the northwest corner of Queen Street West ...0 miles away.

Video

Video Wall

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Elsewhere on the Web

Nuti Blanche - Official Site
On Saturday, October 4, 2008 close to a million revellers took to Toronto's streets to participate in this playful sunset-to-sunrise celebration of contemporary art.
Scotiabank Nuit Blanche - CenterforContemporaryCanadianArt
Image and video documentation of Nuit Blanche events. Includes curator and artist statements, bios, cvs, links.
Nuit Blanche - Wikipedia.org
Taken off from a similar German festival that began in 1997 (see Long Night of Museums), a Nuit Blanche will typically have museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions offer free admission to all, with the downtown core of a city itself being turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music, film, dance, performance art), themed social gatherings, and other activities.

Media References

1 million take in Toronto's Nuit Blanche - CBC.ca (television)
Organizers estimate a million people took in Toronto's third annual all-night arts extravaganza, Nuit Blanche, as the city's streets, buildings and public spaces were turned into art galleries for one night only.
Nuit Blanche 'Bigger than all of us' - Canada.com (newspaper)
Toronto's Special Events Department estimated yesterday that just under one million people participated in the all-night arts fest Nuit Blanche this past weekend.

Language Guides

French , Italian , Japanese , Lao , Portugese , Russian , Spanish , Turkish , Vietnamese are some of the languages spoken in Canada. If you know of a freely available phrase book or podcast for one of the missing languages, let us know!

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