We asked 12 artists from Nuit Blanche Toronto how they 'bridge distance'

How do we experience distance? What do we do to traverse it? And how do we form connections across it? At a time when our divisions feel deep, art can help us find new ways to build bridges. 

For Nuit Blanche Toronto 2024 — the all-night art festival that kicks off Saturday at 7 p.m. with more than 80 projects to see and explore — "bridging distance" is the theme of the year. 

In partnership with the festival, CBC Arts has made a special Nuit Blanche Toronto edition of Think Like An Artist — our digital creative aid that collects wisdom, inspiration and problem-solving advice from some of Canada's brightest artistic minds. 

For this special edition, we asked a dozen artists participating in the festival: What's a creative strategy for bridging distance?

You'll find their responses presented here as a virtual deck of cards (illustrated by Monnet Design). Draw one at random and let chance inspire you, or browse until you find the wisdom you seek.

Think Like An Artist: Nuit Blanche Toronto edition will additionally be presented as a series of projections on display at the Nuit Blanche Event Hub at Harbour Square Park where you can also catch a live recording of CBC Music's Afterdark with Odario Williams (Two sets, from 9–11 p.m. and 12:30–2:30 a.m. Check out the full schedule of events lined up here).

According to Nuit Blanche Toronto Artistic Director Laura Nanni, the theme came about because we find ourselves in a moment when the distance and difference between people seems significant. 

"It is a response to the overall feeling as the city transforms and we deal with issues like climate change and social injustice that can lead to divisiveness," she says. 

Nuit Blanche Toronto artist and TLAA contributor Anique Jordan says: "We actually don't have many spaces where we can safely talk about the distances between us, particularly when thinking on a socio-political register. 'Bridging distances,' to me, means working across difference — and, as hard as that can feel, we are living amongst conditions that ask that difficult work of us more and more often." 

Mishann Lau, another Think Like An Artist Nuit Blanche Toronto contributor, says art gives us the space to hold challenging conversations and to find connections. "Art allows the artist to ask hard questions about difficult topics in a medium that is accessible to people of all ages and ethnicities."

For musician and composer Joseph Shabason, whose work will also be featured at the festival, art is good at bridging distance because it encourages an open mind. "There's less pressure to define yourself, whether it be the way you think, the way you are or what you believe in. I think it's a space where you can really feel free and experiment. And I think inherent to making good art is just an openness and a willingness to bridge distance and to see other perspectives and ways of doing things."

When it comes to building connections and healing divisions, art allows us to see the world differently, Nanni says.

"If we want to meet across difference, if we want to feel closer and more comfortable, not only person to person, but with nature, with the land and with other parts of the world, I think we need to get creative about how we're doing that."