Nuit Blanche Toronto
Dr. Julie Nagam is the Nuit Blanche artistic director for the 2020 and 2022 events. Nuit Blanche Toronto is a free contemporary art event that cultivates meaningful artistic and curatorial engagement for the broadest public. Since 2006, the event has featured more than 1500 art installations, created by 5500 artists, and has generated an audience of over 1 million plus annually. Produced by the City of Toronto, Nuit Blanche is the largest free public art exhibition in North America.
Curatorial Theme
People are the heart of their communities and this curatorial theme will focus on the connections across urban, polar and pacific landscapes revealing the space between us as a potential site for sharing knowledge. People have always commingled with different communities and nations – to build new spaces and families, shifting their relationships and connections to each other and to place.
People disrupt and transform space which make connections that are meaningful with communities and place. The global crisis of displacing people brings communities together to stand up for humanity and support each other, now more than ever. It reminds us of our willingness to connect when our future is linked to the collaboration between cultures, knowledge, nations and practices.
This curatorial theme invites artists to build bridges between cultures, communities, and the environment. To transform the city by telling your stories about the connection to place
Nuit Blanche 2020
The 15th annual Nuit Blanche Toronto was reimagined to deliver a special online edition to ensure the safety of attendees and artists during the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual event presented five streams of programming, including talks, podcasts, live streams, Nuit History and augmented and virtual reality artworks. Artistic Director Julie Nagam’s curatorial theme – The Space Between Us – focused on the connections across urban, polar and pacific landscapes revealing the space between us as a potential site for sharing knowledge.
In 2020, Nuit Blanche Toronto presented 55 BIPOC artists, including a large number from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, who engaged with the public through streamed content, soundscapes, and incredible DJs (Nuit Live), through over 1400 archived artworks (Nuit History), and over 20 augmented and virtual reality works (Nuit in Your Neighbourhood). The roster of AR/VR artists included Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Maureen Gruben, Johnson Witehira, Whyishnave Suthagar, Kereama Taepa, Couzyn Van Heuvelen, Rah, Shelley Niro, Scott Benesiinaabandan, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Jordan Stranger, Yung Yemi, Tsēma Igharas, Joi Arcand, Caroline Monnet, Mark Stoddard, KC Adams, Kaaterina Kerekere, Michael Belmore, Jean Marshall, and Jerry Evans.
Nuit Live offered six hours of live streaming of the Nuit Archive with the Data Visualization Studio (Patricio Davila, Dave Colangelo, Immony Men) accompanied by soundscapes provided by special guests DJ Fizza, DJ Kookum, and Odario and Ofield Williams. Viewers were able to witness artworks by Amrita Hepi, Johnson Witehira, Rah, Shelley Niro, Culturans, Sage Paul, Caroline Monnet, Natalie Robertson, Graeme Atkins, Alex Monteith, Aparita Bhandari, Mai Nguyen, James Harbeck, Hannah Bronte, Kaaterina Kerekere, Camille Turner, Rachael Rakena, Dr. Karlo Mila, Michael Bridgman, Kereama Taepa, Kura Puke, Stuart Foster, Kurt Komene, and Louise Pōtiki Bryant. Nuit History was streamed using a random algorithm for Nuit Live and lives on the City of Toronto home page with an archive of images and videos of over 1400 projects from the past 15 years.
Nuit History
The incredible archive of works featured as part of Nuit Blanche since the inception of the event in 2006 is now available online, including images, videos and artist information.
Nuit Talks
Nuit Talks is a free program offering in-depth conversations, insightful discussions, panels, Q&As and performances with Nuit Blanche artists, scholars and curators.
Nuit Podcast
Belonging to Place is a series of ten 40-minute curated podcasts with interviews and discussions revolving around a geographic thematic.