I missed the inaugural Nuit Blanche last year, but this year joined the 400,000 strong (that’s 1 in 10 Torontonians) crowd in taking over Toronto downtown for a night. Nuit Blanche ran from sunset last Saturady to sunrise on Sunday and scattered works of art; some interactive, some display, and some just odd, around downtown.

First stop was a gargantuan 50-metre long locust down at Allan Lamport stadium, at the south-west periphery of Zone C. We drove there first because figured we wouldn’t get around to it later. While cool and big, it was a glorified air castle, and some kids and young adults were busy jumping onto its puffy legs while security looked on. From there, we parked closer to Queen St W (actually found a great spot just south of Trinty-Bellwoods) and subwayed up to Museum to meet up with Nelson and Kitty.

We met up in the Gardiner Museum where a large crowd had gathered to watch an artist “paint” a mural with black tape. We proceeded downstairs to the Clay Studio and lined up for some free clay time. They closed down at midnight, so we were lucky in being one of the last ones in. The turnover rate in there was rather slow, because when you went in, they would give you a lump of clay and then you were free to create whatever you wanted. So if you wanted to create something, tear it down, and make something else, you were free to do so. We didn’t have that problem, because we had no idea what to make! Fortunately for us, we were playing Tetris while waiting in line so we had some inspiration.

After handing off our creations (and paying $3 each) to be fired, we continued on our trek. It was about 1AM now and we had only seen one exhibit! Good thing this event lasted all night. we walked through Queen’s Park and came across Diaspora Dialogues & The Word On The Street which was very weird so we moved on. We went over to the Hart House and wandered around for a bit, and met up with Richard who had finished clubbing. Next, we headed out to King’s College Circle and come upon Event Horizon. It was pretty lame, weird, and cool at the same time. The fog and lights made it look like there was a close encounter.

We proceeded down McCaul to Dundas and visited some of the galleries on Dundas before heading over to OCAD. In the park behind OCAD, there was a huge video screen and a projector where random volunteers dancing on a green screen were shown. It was pure hilarity, but I guess you had to be there. We went over to the OCAD building, and were planning on going inside, but were sidetracked by the free popcorn offered by the SCENE card. So instead, we got some popcorn, and some seats and watched an hour long worth of shorts! By that time, it was past 4 and we decided to head home. Unfortunately, I had planned that we would end up walking to Queen St W so when we did want to leave, we wouldn’t have to go far to the car. Of course, OCAD is nowhere near Queen West, so we ended up walking another half hour to the car. Actually in retrospect, my plan wasn’t that great either because between OCAD and Trinity-Bellwoods, there were hardly any exhibits; most of them were to the west of the park.

All in all, it was fun and interesting. I guess it’s an excuse for creative-minded people to put on random scenarios funded by Scotia Bank, and that in itself is pretty cool. Although I noticed while writing this blog that most of the things we saw weren’t even on the Nuit Blanche website; you really had to be out and about to get a taste of the event. Also the number of dSLRs I saw greatly outnumbered conventional digital cameras. I guess people are learning that cameras don’t work so well at night.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: publicart, streetfestivals, toronto