Centennial College’s Story Arts Centre in East York to feature Nuit Blanche exhibitions this weekend
By MATTHEW STEPHENS
Centennial College’s School of Communications, Media, Arts, and Design is preparing for the 18th annual Nuit Blanche all-night celebration of contemporary art.
From Saturday, Oct. 5, at 7 p.m. to Sunday, Oct. 6, at 7 a.m. the Peace Building exhibit at Centennial’s Story Arts Centre, 951 Carlaw Ave., will feature as a multidisciplinary art instillation that explores this year’s Nuit Blanche theme of Bridging the Distance.
By drawing connections between creativity, unity, and change, Peace Building aims to rebuild, heal, and transform its audience through unifying works of art.
Centennial College’s Event Coordinator and faculty member John Caffery expressed his excitement for visitors to get involved in this year’s collection of interactive art.
“It’s always a priority that there are opportunities to not just be a spectator, but to participate in the art making and experience ways in which those lines are blurred between artist and visitor,” said Caffery.
In recent years, community engagement has been the cornerstone of Story Arts Centre exhibitions at Nuit Blanche. This year’s overnight installation welcomes visitors to engage and reflect on the ways art breaks down interpersonal barriers to bring about freedom of expression and creativity throughout and beyond the City of Toronto.
Visitors will experience a range of interactive installations encompassing themes of peace, harmony, and justice; brought to life with iconic works from musicians Sam Cooke and Joni Mitchell, photographer Nan Goldin, and visual artist David Wojnarowicz.
With Peace Building, students, alumni, and staff of Centennial encourage the community to create and contribute to this year’s artistic exhibitions.
Centennial’s Free as a Bird exhibition will be the college’s first time using the library to display interactive artwork. The exhibition involves the creation of more than 1,000 origami doves to be set free above the college, to serve as a metaphoric safe space to land, grow, and peacefully unify.
One by one, doves will be released to amass the skies and circulate the college for the entire 12–hour event.
Say Your Peace is a speaker’s corner project facilitated by Centennial’s journalism and production design students.
The interactive installation gives audiences a chance to voice their opinion about what peace means to them.
On the college’s second floor, The Together Project will take place in the Collaboratorium area and will give audiences a chance to witness Centennial’s fine arts students come together to paint a large mural over the course of the evening.
Themes of unity, collaboration and togetherness will be on full display in one big collaborative work of art.
Eutierria: Becoming One with Nature will be the first time the college features an installation in the building’s centre courtyard. Hosted by theatre students, the series of outdoor performances will explore the relationship between peace and nature while immersing the audience in nature itself.
Your Voice Matters is a sing-along activity that invites visitors to join music students performing in a live concert that covers 10 distinct songs; each from a different decade within the last 100 years that exemplifies what it means to spread messages of peace throughout history.
Song lyrics will be projected to unify audiences and encourage visitor collaboration.
Since 2006, Toronto’s award-winning overnight art spectacle Nuit Blanche has featured almost 1,600 art installations by approximately 5,800 artists.
The Bridging the Distance theme invites audiences to think about the way they perceive and experience distance.
When speaking about the city’s overarching theme and its connection to Centennial College’s installation, Caffery mentioned why this year’s Nuit Blanche stands out. “It is an important time in our world to talk about peace building,” said Caffery. “I think this is a theme and focus that is timely.”
For more on this weekend’s Nuit Blanche exhibitions in Toronto, go to https://bit.ly/3zow8s5
