Visitors get cozy with art by Genevieve Thauvette at the Gallerie St. Laurent+Hill for Nuit Blanche festivities that went on until morning.
Nuit Blanche Ottawa was held last weekend and the city’s public spaces have since been reverted to their original, less artistic, states. But some members of the art community are hoping that this is only the beginning of the all-night art affair.
Nuit Blanche Ottawa was held last weekend and the city’s public spaces have since been reverted to their original, less artistic, states. But some members of the art community are hoping that this is only the beginning of the all-night art affair.
On Saturday, the city was transformed by more than 100 temporary art projects varying from live performances, to visual, media and projection installations.
Co-curator of NBO, Lainie Towell, attributes the night’s success to the community’s hard work and the high response to their open call for project submissions.
“It demonstrates that the Ottawa arts and cultural community is ready for a Nuit Blanche,” she said, with hope the festival will become an annual city tradition as in Montreal and Toronto.
Earlier this year, NBO received start up funding from the Trillium Foundation and a small grant from the City of Ottawa, but the event was lacking a big corporate sponsor.
Despite community doubts and some minor setbacks local businesses, galleries and independent artists worked side by side and in some cases collaboratively, towards a greater goal – the theme ‘La Vie Est Belle’, ‘Life is Beautiful’.
Towell said that not having a big corporate sponsor in NBO’s first year has not been a bad thing.
“I think that it’s really exciting that we don’t have a huge corporate sponsor, so you know it’s really the artists and their creativity behind the event.”
A young woman singing France’s national anthem from inside of a giant birthday cake, a “before I die” blackboard, a bus wearing a sweater and an artist sketching imagined nudes of fully clothed people are just a few of the bizarre sights that filled the Byward Martket and Hintonburg during the one night art extravaganza.
However, “a corporate sponsor will help accomplish bigger goals,” Towell admitted, “and hopefully that is the direction we are heading in.”
Artist, Julie LaPalme, who helped organize Lemonjellow Productions’ eco-friendly, origami-like, pop-up gallery outside the Ottawa School of Art on Saturday, agreed, insisting that the community put in the work and that next year’s organizers should be looking for a big corporate sponsor.
“As long as the artists see that money and it doesn’t go to just making it a bigger festival where all of the artists are still doing it for free, then yes it would be awesome,” she said.
The Ottawa School of Art acted as one of three hubs during NBO, housing a number of varying independent artists’ projects both inside and outside of the building.
The school’s director, Jeff Stellick said that if NBO remains “something that brings people out and makes them more aware of the local cultural scene then that will be good.” But he was less optimistic about the idea of a large corporate sponsor in the festival’s future.
“If it turns into sort of a big all night corporate sponsor festival, then that’s something else, but we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Even though last weekend’s sleepless night of arts and culture kept Ottawa up late, it seems Nuit Blanche Ottawa has left the community wanting more.