The art community of Ottawa was booming until the wee hours of the morning on Saturday Sept. 22 with Ottawa’s first Nuit Blanche event.
Nuit Blanche is an all-night contemporary art festival that originated in Paris then expanded to cities and towns around the world. Artists take advantage of this event to create street art, to exhibit their photography or paintings, and to open up their gallery to the public from dusk to dawn.
This year was Ottawa’s first time hosting Nuit Blanche. Art installations and exhibits were set up in various different zones of Ottawa, including the Byward Market, Hintonburg, Chinatown, and others scattered in between. The event organizers provided free shuttles that ran from the Hintonburg to Byward Market zones approximately every thirty minutes.
The event ran from 6:22 p.m. on Sept. 22 until 4:23 a.m. on Sept. 23. Lainie Towell, one of the main curators for the event, said that the random start and end times are “meant to creatively represent the start and end dates of the event.”
The theme of this year’s event was Life is Beautiful, allowing for many unique and diverse representations of the beauty of human life and the world around us.
“The theme Life is Beautiful really embodies what Nuit Blanche is about; a celebration about life, art, creativity and culture,” said Towell.
“The artists are really excited about this. The sky is the limit in terms of creativity.”
La Petite Mort Gallery opened their doors for their Working Conditions exhibit, curated by John Caffery. Working Conditions created an interactive environment through the use of massage therapy, burlesque and gogo Dancing to reflect on those who work within the sex trade.
Many people had hesitations about the content of this particular exhibit and were worried that it would be controversial to the audience, but this didn’t seem to be a concern on Saturday night.
“I’ve been heading out to all of the events and there’s a good variety. This one is like a dance party while others are really existential and experimental. It’s a good showcase of local art, and I certainly don’t think this exhibit is controversial. Talking about the sex market is not controversial, it’s all good consensual fun,” said spectator Zaheen Karim, a community health worker.
Other highlights were Candy Chang’s Before I Die wall outside of the SAW Video Gallery. Citizens of Chang’s hometown, New Orleans, covered the wall with items from their bucket list, whether serious or comical.
Reflected on the wall of the Rideau Centre across the street from the SAW Video Gallery was Laura Taler’s video of a spinning top. Viewers stopped to look at the video and became mesmerized by its repetitive, never-ending spinning.
On the front lawn of St. Brigid’s church stood Thea Alvin’s creation of a shopping cart arch. Decorated with white Christmas lights, the arch was difficult to miss and presented an interesting approach on ways to use common objects artistically.
With Toronto’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche looming just around the corner Sept. 29, Toronto’s programming manager Julian Sleath reflects on the positive results of hosting Nuit Blanche.
“The follow up surveys that we produce after the events show an enormous economic benefit from the events happening.”
