For one night each year, Nuit Blanche renders Toronto a de facto art gallery, with exhibits taking over streets, parks, public buildings, and unexpected corners of the city. But while Nuit Blanche can feel spontaneous to the people experiencing it, the process of putting it together is anything but.
This year’s 20th anniversary edition features more than 70 projects — a handpicked mix of new commissions and remounts of past works — selected through a process that was a little different from the past few years. Rather than working with a single artistic director or external curator, the City’s programming team worked with a four-member Curatorial Advisory Committee in an approach that Programming Supervisor Johnson Ngo says was spurred by the anniversary itself.
Ahead of this year’s festival — running from 7:00 pm on Saturday, October 3 to 7:00 am on Sunday, October 4 — Ngo spoke with STOREYS about the thinking behind the curatorial change, the team's mindset behind projects and locations, and what else goes into producing an event that might look like it happens in one night, but takes a year to build.
STOREYS: What led to the decision to use a Curatorial Advisory Committee this year, and how were the members selected?
Johnson Ngo: It is really the 20th anniversary that inspired the advisory committee approach. All committee members have a vested interest within Nuit Blanche Toronto and have worked with us in various capacities. Esmond Lee is an artist who was previously an independent project artist as well as a commission project artist, and also represents the Scarborough-based arts community. Shannon Linde previously was the independent projects program coordinator and a programming supervisor. Ryan Rice previously curated a film program as part of Nuit Blanche. And Camilla Singh was one of our external curators who commissioned an entire exhibition area.
Of all the projects being considered, how was it decided that, “This needs to be experienced in Toronto, at night, in a public space”?
The committee reviews all the applications and scores them based on artistic merit, relevance to the annual theme, budget and feasibility, and nimbleness to respond to site specificity. We also look at why a project is important to be presented at Nuit Blanche as opposed to in a traditional gallery or theatre space.
We were thinking about the power of temporary public art and its ability to transform places and spaces — neighbourhoods, civic spaces, roadways, parks, communities — as well as audience engagement and interactivity. We really pride ourselves on projects that are, what we call, of “Nuit Blanche scale” — projects that can be understood and appreciated within a large-scale, one-night-only art celebration. That balance between curatorial rigour and artistic merit and accessibility and inclusivity is so important because sometimes our audiences are experiencing contemporary visual art for the first time.
Per this year’s theme, Tomorrow’s Memories, Nuit Blanche will feature projects from past editions. What makes a past project worth revisiting, and how do you ensure you’re still pushing the event forward?
It's not necessarily the greatest hits of Nuit Blanche from all past years, but rather a collection of projects that really speak to either collective memory, ephemerality, [or] history as storytelling as our entry points for this year's theme. Everyone on our producing team was asked to put forward a number of projects that they worked on or experienced that were indicative of what Nuit Blanche Toronto is, and would be worthy of bringing back and being remounted in a new context.
One example is R.I.S.E Through the Ages: Where I'm From. This project really speaks to the impact Nuit Blanche has had in Scarborough from its inaugural year, in 2018. This will be presented in Old City Hall in its courtyard, and will showcase a number of amazing Scarborough-based artists, spoken-word performers, and musicians. Nearly 60 artists are participating in this project, and it really occupies and intervenes in a really poetic way in the central courtyard of Old City Hall. In its original presentation, the project was in a Scarborough loading dock, but now we're showcasing and centring Scarborough artists' experience within an amazing site of history and architecture and heritage.
Nuit Blanche is unusual among art exhibitions because its venue is essentially the entire city. How does location factor into the selection process?
There are lots of spaces and places that are opportunities for projects to be sited, and they all have pros and cons for wayfinding, navigation, audience experience, and so forth. We have these locations as prospects, and then we work together as a team and with artists to identify the hierarchy of priorities for the siting to be in relation to the artwork's needs at its core. Sometimes an artwork needs a quiet or darker space, or a space that has more control around visual clutter or light or sound.
That doesn’t sound like a quick process. How long does it take to work those kinds of logistics out?
What people don't know is that Nuit Blanche is a year-long project in terms of its development. We go through the priorities of the project, we go through siting, we go through audience experience, then to fabrication and production and execution. What you might think is, “Oh, this project already exists. We just put it here, and magically it is there.” It is not the case. We actually meet with the artists pretty much for the whole year before the event.
Do you think there’s anything the public might not realize about Nuit Blanche’s role in the art world beyond this once-a-year event?
The event is a beloved event for the city of Toronto. The reason why it continues to exist is through the community's appreciation and advocacy of it. What people don't know is that Nuit Blanche stewards a lot of artists from a product development, professional development, and career development perspective. Through working with the City and in the large-scale event process and the bureaucratic systems that exist, we really set artists up for success for them to be moving on to other more established institutions like a gallery or a museum. For some projects or artists that have been successful in our public art and monuments collection, some have been commissioned directly through their work with Nuit Blanche.
For someone who thinks art isn’t really their thing, how should they approach this year’s Nuit Blanche?
I would say they're wrong. Art is for everyone. I think they should approach the event with curiosity, and plan their art adventure by understanding where they might begin and being open to stumbling upon interventions and performances they might not necessarily understand or be prepared for. Our volunteers and staff are always available to speak to the art and also ask our audiences, “How does the art make you feel?” or “What do you understand about it?”
We also partner with a number of major institutions and arts and cultural partners who are opening their doors for free all night long. This is one way for our audiences to experience art in a way that is low barrier. That includes the Aga Khan Museum, the Japanese Canadian Cultural Center, the Humber Cultural Hub, Youngplace, Wychwood Barns, and 401 Richmond.
Are there any projects in particular that you think people will be surprised by or will really resonate with?
I Miss You: T.Dot Memories by Francesca Nocera, aka SUN SUN, curated by Witch Prophet. This is a project that came to us as an ambitious revisioning of cartoon illustrations of Toronto historic landmarks, scaled up to become a large-scale, four-sided inflatable. I believe it's 20 feet in size and it captures Sam the Record Man, Ontario Place, Honest Ed's, and the MuchMusic facade, with the car crashing into the wall. I think it really speaks to collective memory and how living memories can be memorialized in art.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Find information on projects, getting around, and Nuit Blanche programming on the City of Toronto's website.
