Five spectacular sights to see at Nuit Blanche

Five spectacular sights to see at Nuit Blanche

Including a paean to the Raptors and an aurora borealis spanning Queen Street

For Nuit Blanche, Toronto’s annual all-night art party, 90 installations will take over the GTA. Here are our top five locations to check out:

Scarborough Town Centre

For the second year, Scarborough will be an eastern hub for the festival, with the action is clustered around Scarborough Town Centre, where Instagram sensation Hatecopy (above) will host an interactive feminist game show (test your wokeness!) and Kent Monkman will unveil the “Miss Chief Eagle Testickle Picture Show,” a cheeky collection of six videos starring his titular gender-twisting alter ego.


City Hall and Old City Hall

“Peace to the Past, Reach for the Future” is an 18-foot sculpture celebrating the Raptors’ 25th birthday. The specs of the monument are still unknown, but creative producer Bryan Espiritu and sculptor Esmaa Mohamoud promise the work will explore the players’ “tenderness and vulnerability.”


Eaton Centre

In “Chasing Red,” Anishinaabe artist Bekah Brown lights up the bridge crossing Queen with glowing hues that mimic the aurora borealis. Scarlet lights will intensify throughout the night, symbolizing Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls; they’ll be bookended at sunset and sunrise by live dancers performing a jingle dance, a sacred ritual of hope and healing.


Nathan Phillips Square

When artist Daniel Arsham got new glasses that corrected his colour-blindness, he could suddenly see subtle shades, like fuchsia that fades into flamingo. His new perspective inspired “Lunar Garden,” a massive Japanese Zen garden, filled with pink trees, white sand and lit by a 30-foot moon.


MOCA

For “It All Makes Sense,” Stephanie Comilang turns the lobby of the Sterling Road museum into a potent sense memory. Using video, textiles, light and scent, she aims to recreate the flash of inspiration she experienced as a teenager watching Perfumed Nightmare, a 1977 film made by a fellow Filipino filmmaker.