Nuit Blanche arts festival set to light up night for a full month

The nights are getting longer and so is Nuit Blanche.

The annual all-night arts festival in Winnipeg, with its array of visual art installations and performances, is going ahead with some pandemic adaptations — after organizers were forced to pull the plug last year.

Instead of a single night that draws thousands of people like moths to brilliant light displays, installations, projections and performances, the 2021 version of Nuit Blanche is going to be a full month.

The festival starts Friday and runs until Oct. 24.

"We're really excited to be able to present both Culture Days Manitoba and Nuit Blanche Winnipeg this year," said Jennifer Cheslock, the general manager of Culture Days Manitoba, which organizes both events.

"With so many events being cancelled, we know that it's really an important time for our artists to be able to share their work with folks, and for audiences to be able to go out and connect."

In past years of Nuit Blanche, dozens of exhibits and events took over galleries, businesses and patios, as well as parking lots and back alleys around the city. In 2019, there were 90 projects for the nighttime exploration of the crowds.

Past attractions have included things like light-up teeter-totters, glow-in-the-dark yoga classes with a live DJ, ghostly doorways and glow basketball.

This year there will be about 30 projects, said Cheslock, noting the vast majority will be outdoors. For those indoors, the public health orders on face masks and proof of vaccination will be in place, she said.

There was an open call to artists to propose pieces around the theme of illumination, Cheslock said.

The response resulted in a range of pieces, from projections through television, film projection, photography, poetry and "all sorts of neat ideas that artists came up with," she said.

The projects will be set up in window displays around downtown the Exchange District, the Forks, St. Boniface and the West End.

"They'll be available for audiences to check out for all four weeks, so you can go out any night, curate your own art experience, do your own art tour," Cheslock said.

One of the performances, called Waterline, is a dance that will be shown this weekend at The Forks harbour. Images will be projected onto a partially-submerged screen to give the appearance the dancers are on the surface of the water.

And those are only the juried works chosen by Culture Days Manitoba. There will also be many independently-organized projects taking place through various businesses or in public spaces like Old Market Square.

"There's something for everyone," Cheslock said.

She hopes that spreading the event out over a month helps allay concerns people may have about getting together with large crowds.

"We didn't want anybody to have to be in a situation where they were uncomfortable, but we still wanted to be able to provide this opportunity to go and check out some really cool art," she said.

Asked if she might keep that longer format in the future, even if the pandemic is no longer a concern, Cheslock said that question has come up a few times.

"I'm trying to look in my crystal ball and see what next year might look like, and that's a tough call," she said. 

"Nuit Blanche is a community festival and we'll respond to what the community is looking for, so if that's extended dates and more options for accessibility, that's certainly something that we could continue going forward into 2022."

More information about this year's event is available on the event's website. Cheslock hopes that by Friday, it will include a map of the locations for all of the installations.