Toronto’s Nuit Blanche is fast approaching, where the city will be taken over by more than 110 art projects by hundreds of local artists. With so much to see this Saturday, we’ve created a list of eight can’t miss events that will take place throughout the night in different locations across Toronto and Scarborough.
Confessions
Concordis | Design Exchange | 234 Bay Street – Main Floor Lobby
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Concordis believes everyone has secrets, but most people have difficulty teling the people around them. Confessions is an interactive exhibit that invites members of the public to submit secrets that are to be shared at Nuit Blanche Toronto. The submissions are anonymous, and they can be submitted in person at a Confessions booth or online.
International Dumpling Festival
Ken Lum | James St. & Queen St.
Dumplings are found in cuisines all over the world, so Kevin Lum collaborated with six Toronto food vendors to make a menu of dumplings including Jamaican patties, Finnish pies, Tibetan momos, Colombian empanadas, and Polish pierogies. The International Dumpling Festival will be a “public food court” that will serve dumplings in several ethnic variations. Lum also created banners that represent the vendors and their food to accompany each of the kiosks.
Down at the Twilight Zone
Harold Offeh | City Hall Loading Dock | 100 Queen St. West
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Down at the Twilight Zone will be a live performative exhibit that is aimed at resurrecting Toronto’s rich, diverse queer histories and narratives. The event reimagines Toronto as a contested site of repression, expression, resistance and celebration by looking at the city as nocturnal queer identities. The night will becoming a living queer archive, and is located in a club-like setting that is supposed to emulate the Twilight Zone (a famous Toronto nightclub).
Within
Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere (RISE) | Scarborough Civic Centre Loading Dock | 150 Borough Dr.
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Reaching Intelligent Souls Everywhere (RISE) is one of Scarborough’s most beloved artist collectives who will be hosting an all-night poetry slam and series of live performances. They will also be debuting their documentary film Within, which documents the stories of Scarborough residents and their experiences that have shaped them into who they are within. RISE is led by youth and composed of artists, free-thinkers, and revolutionaries.
Radical Histories
Ibrahim Mahama | City Hall – Nathan Phillips Square | 100 Queen St. West
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Ibrahim Mahama will be using an epic patchwork of jute fabric to envelop the front roof edge of Toronto City Hall. Mahama’s installation draws attention to the conditions of supply and demand in African markets, and the role of jute sacks in the international movement of goods. For Mahama, the jute sacks are a visual representation of stories of trade and inequality. “They tell of the condition of the people who are trapped by those places, and the places themselves,” the artist explains.
Cavalier Noir
Ekow Nimako & Director X | Scarborough Civic Centre | 150 Borough Dr.
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Using over 80,000 Lego pieces, Ekow Nimako fosters critical thought about how Canadians choose to represent “our heroes,” and who are heroes actually are. Nimako proposes a monument for Scarborough – a Black child warrior mounted over seven feet tall riding a black unicorn. Cavalier Noir is an emblem of hope that takes discarded or overlooked things around us and flips them to inspire the voices of the oppressed. Director X provides the accompanying mythological narrative.
Make Your Mark
Meghan Ross | Toronto Coach Terminal | 610 Bay St.
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Meghan Ross explores what it means to make your mark in a city through a sculptural installation that uses only craft glue, clear tape, and the human hand. In this interactive exhibit, audience members can imprint their pattern on their city by drying glue and peeling it off. Their fingerprints will then be hung as a marker of their own identity. Ross has been collecting these fingerprint contributions around the city throughout the year, and thousands of them will be suspended from the ceiling.
On Flashing Lights
Brendan Fernandes | Bay St. & Richmond St.
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On Flashing Lights by Brendan Fernandes is a light and sound installation barricaded by police vehicles along Bay Street that will open a space around a central stage. Throughout the night, some Toronto DJs that come from queer, immigrant, and racialized communities will perform uneasily in front of the lights of police cars to highlight their historic tension. As another interactive exhibit, the audience is invited to participate by dancing as an expression of solidarity and community.
