Nuit Blanche Saskatoon
Curator and Project Manager: Nuit Blanche Saskatoon (2017-2019)
Nuit Blanche Saskatoon is an annual, free, night-time arts festival that features projections, sculptural installations, performance, music, theatre, and other contemporary art forms presented throughout multiple neighbourhoods in Saskatoon. Through ongoing partnerships with community organizations, the festival works toward becoming accessible to not only an arts audience but other cultural groups and communities. Nuit Blanche Saskatoon receives estimated annual attendance of 10,000.
I served as Nuit Blanche Saskatoon’s Curator and Project Manager for three years, moving the festival into financial stability and expanding the festival to multiple neighbourhoods throughout Saskatoon.
My third year as Curator and Project Manager for Nuit Blanche Saskatoon (the festival's sixth annual event) we expanded to a two-night festival. The main night featured 44 artists creating 21 projects throughout three Saskatoon neighbourhoods, while a preview event the night before, Nuit Blanche Eve, featured 7 student and 3 professional artists creating 9 projects installed across the University of Saskatchewan (Usask) campus. While our focus remained local, for our main festival we brought in artists from Brazil, New York, Winnipeg, and Siksika Nation. As in recent years, attendance was estimated at 10,000.
Nuit Blanche Eve was created in partnership with numerous departments at USask, including Computer Science, Physics, and Art & Art History. Together with USask professors, I worked with students throughout the Winter, Spring, and Summer terms to develop their projects, some of which were featured in the main festival the following night. During my time with Shared Spaces, Nuit Blanche Eve became an opportunity to showcase augmented reality artworks created by USask students and continues in this form to this day.
The expansion of Nuit Blanche to multiple nights allowed the festival to meet the eligibility criteria for Canadian Heritage funding, the largest source of funding for Canadian festivals; Nuit Blanche later received this funding in the festival’s first year of eligibility.
Dangerous Times by BlackFlash x Randy Grskovic. BlackFlash created an installation will that included projections of Toronto-based artist Randy Grskovic's archive of found photographs and a photobooth where attendees could capture their own intimate moment.
Nuit Blanche T-Shirt Printing by Cate Francis. Printmaker Cate Francis led Nuit Blanche attendees in screen printing their own festival t-shirts in glow-in-the-dark ink using a whimsical design referencing the festival's activities.
LIFE Boats by Cecile Miller. In this interactive installation, Cecile invited participants to learn to create a boat, inscribe and send a message of hope, and receive one in return.
Scummy Magic, a Saskatoon-based sticker art dispensary project, is a collaborative and co-curated mobile art gallery with strong emphasis on showcasing the talents of Saskatchewan-based emerging artists. Encased within the vending machine were stickers (of course), but also fortunes and horoscopes, fun facts, haikus and mad libs, conversation starters, and treasure hunts.
Scummy Magic, a Saskatoon-based sticker art dispensary project, is a collaborative and co-curated mobile art gallery with strong emphasis on showcasing the talents of Saskatchewan-based emerging artists. Encased within the vending machine were stickers (of course), but also fortunes and horoscopes, fun facts, haikus and mad libs, conversation starters, and treasure hunts.
(Mis)identification by The Do-Mystics. The Do-Mystics are a feminist collective created by Monique Blom and Arantxa Araujo based in NYC, Mexico City and Saskatoon. Their collective explores themes through ritual processes of identity, gender, immigration and domesticity.
Tai-Chi by Inter-Cultural Wellness Society. The Inter-Cultural Wellness Society shared Chinese heritage by teaching Tai-Chi. Their members discussed its cultural significance with participants during Nuit Blanche, inviting those who are interested to join for their regular weekly Tai-Chi sessions.
Community Dance Stage, featuring performances by numerous youth dance companies in Saskatoon.
TRUST ME? HERE, NOW by KSAMB Dance Company. KSAMB, founded in 2009, is a collaboration between Kyle Syverson and Miki Mappin. Their outdoor, site-specific performance will engage the imagination and senses, offering alternatives to fear and complacency.
Ghostly by Joseph Anderson. Joseph is a Saskatoon-based artist who references fairy tales, cautionary stories, and childhood memories in his playful work. His hand-sewn, ghostly apparitions haunted the evening, illuminated as they hung from light poles, encouraging a discussion about nighttime anxieties.
Ghostly by Joseph Anderson. Joseph is a Saskatoon-based artist who references fairy tales, cautionary stories, and childhood memories in his playful work. His hand-sewn, ghostly apparitions haunted the evening, illuminated as they hung from light poles, encouraging a discussion about nighttime anxieties.
Like a Saw in a Birthday Cake by E. M. Alysse Bowd. This performance was an absurd personification of a cake walk, of diet rituals, and the danger of obsessions — it was about self-control, self-care and the sickly sweet — it was about feeling blindfolded but trying to run — it was a girl, her saw and a landscape of cake.
The Tear Away Series by Jaden Kraus. Inspired by the comments received through social media The Tear Away Series was a collection of interactive wearables discussing the impact of the words we say and how we cope with the words we hear. Comments were collected through an online public survey, printed onto paper, and sewn onto clothing which was worn by models walking throughout the Nuit Blanche festival site. Attendees were invited to approach a model and tear off a comment of their choosing.
Rebellious Space by Kyuubi Culture. Kyuubi Culture is an interdisciplinary art collective founded in 2017 by artists Xiao Han and Qiming Sun. They were joined for Nuit Blanche by China-based artist Li Wan, utilizing luminous materials, twisted wooden structures that defy logic and geometry, and eccentric performance art to create a surreal space within an otherwise mundane and familiar alleyway.
Walk the Line by Laura Hale. Born and raised in Tisdale, SK, Laura is a full-time multidisciplinary and community-engaged artist currently based in Saskatoon. Walk the Line was a large-scale mixed media installation comprised of a moving image, sound, and textile art.
Once Were Pilgrims by Michael Farnan, Lori Blondeau, and Adrian Stimson. Michael's work aims to challenge Canada's colonial legacies and representational practices that continue to privilege settler history. For Nuit Blanche, he collaborated with internationally renowned artists Lori Blondeau and Adrian Stimson in a performance that takes on the appearance of a panel discussion.
A looping projection of work by University of Saskatchewan students Shawn Kauenhofen, Emilie Neudorf, Rebecca Vereschagin, and Lauren Warrington, whose work was featured in Nuit Blanche Eve under the direction of artist Lisa Birke.
stuck inside a cloud by Ricardo Bizafra. Ricardo is an artist and set designer from Brazil. His installation was an immersive, inflatable that provided a dreamy, cloudy space where visitors could escape their surroundings for a few moments.