As part of Nuit Blanche 2025, Rimini Protokoll will present a Toronto version of their long-running project 100 % [City]. Pictured is a scene from a 2011 performance of 100 % City Tokyo. (Yohta Kataoko)
Every fall, Toronto residents face the same eternal question: what’s worth seeing at Nuit Blanche? They won’t have long to decide.
The city’s all-night contemporary art party returns Saturday at sundown, running from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m..
The theme is Translating the City. “Translation is not simply about the conversation of one language to another, but it’s about the connection and understanding it creates,” says Laura Nanni, the artistic director of Nuit Blanche Toronto, and this year’s official exhibitions will be located in three separate zones: downtown, North York and Etobicoke.
As part of Nuit Blanche 2025, Tangled Art + Disability will present the Nuit Blanche Remote Access Hub. In addition to providing an in-person gathering spot in North York, the hub will be doing an all-night livestream, providing viewers with remote access to the Nuit Blanche festivities. Tune-in details will be made available through the Nuit Blanche website. (Michelle Peek Photography/The Centre for Art and Social Justice at the University of Guelph)
The festival boasts dozens of independent projects which will be appearing across multiple neighbourhoods, and there’ll be programming at partner institutions including 401 Richmond, Wychwood Barns, East End Arts and the Aga Khan Museum. Factor in all those attractions, and the event map stretches roughly 30 km between its most extreme points.
So if you’re planning to explore the main hubs, what’s the best way to navigate Nuit? Here are some insights from the artistic team who curated the program.
Downtown
Come on, feel the noise. The downtown exhibition, Poetic Justice, extends from City Hall to Chinatown, and in assembling the program, curator Charlene K. Lau was inspired by all the sounds of the city: traffic, music — and the chatter of 200 spoken languages.
The works she’s selected were also inspired by the multi-layered history of the land and the many communities who’ve called it home. And she’s also added a pop culture reference or two.
If you’re planning to Nuit in the downtown core, here’s what to see first.
Chinatown advocate Jean Lumb is seen here in this photo from the 1960s. The picture is the source image for The Sound of Lions in Chinatown by Annie Wong and Hannia Cheng. (Arlene Chan)
The Sound of Lions in Chinatown
Location: 484 Dundas St. W (West Gate)
At the western edge of the zone, Annie Wong and Hannia Cheng have built a Chinatown gate unlike any you’ve seen before. The piece is a large-scale photograph of community advocate Jean Lumb, but the image has been printed on an enormous slatted curtain, the sort you might find in a grocery store. A suggestion from Lau: as you pass through the artwork, imagine you’re moving through history.
A companion gate will be found a few blocks east at 393 Dundas St. W. Lion dances will be happening near both installations.
People’s Dance Floor
Location: 317 Dundas St. W
Once you’re in Chinatown, welcome to the party. Inside the exhibition zone, Dundas Street will be closed to vehicle traffic, and Lau’s curated a program that’s all about generating a “festive feeling.” There’s no better example than the People’s Dance Floor, a video dance party that’ll be raging all night in front of the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Lau’s collected playlists from hometown heroes and art stars including rapper Michie Mee, choreographer Tanisha Scott and Sobey Art Award nominee Sandra Brewster. And if you time things just right, you can live the dream of every Canadian ’90s teen; MuchMusic VJ Master T will be hosting live between 9 p.m. and midnight.
Says Lau: “Gathering folks through music is a reminder that it’s a really difficult world that we’re living in, but there’s also so much joy to be had.”
Demian DinéYazhi’. (English is a Foreign Language) Protect the Sacred Voice, 2024. (Demian DinéYazhi’)
Protect the Sacred Voice
Location: 100 Queen St. W
If you’re coming to Nuit’s downtown zone from the east, you’ll enter the exhibition at City Hall. This side of the program offers a “more quiet and contemplative” mood than what’s happening a few blocks west, says Lau, and she suggests lingering in Nathan Phillips Square when you arrive. There, you’ll find a project by Demian DinéYazhi’, a Diné artist who’s based in Portland, Ore.
For Nuit Blanche, the artist has printed a message on a banner that spans the front of City Hall. In their screenprinting practice, the artist’s previous posters have featured phrases such as: “Nurture resistance! Love Revolution!” “Western art history is colonial propaganda.” “English is a foreign language.”
That last slogan — which Lau first saw on the artist’s social media — inspired her to commission DinéYazhi’ for Nuit Blanche. “I really liked how that [phrase] twisted our relativity and our idea of what we think languages are like. And so that directly connects to of course poetry and translation — this year’s theme.”
Protect the Sacred Voice is one of this year’s extended projects; it’ll be up at Nathan Phillips Square through Oct. 13.
Etobicoke
The Etobicoke zone — From Here, There, Everywhere — is curated by Renata Azevedo Moreira. “The exhibition is really about building home away from home,” she explains, and the works are appearing in and around the Humber Polytechnic Lakeshore campus.
Moreira says the location perfectly complements the subject matter. Being a college, it attracts students from all sorts of backgrounds and places. “It’s a point of encounter for so many different people coming from all over the world, right?” And if you’re planning to be there for Nuit Blanche, here’s where your night should begin.
Video still from River Piece (Raukokore) by asinnajaq. (asinnajaq)
River Piece (Etobicoke)
Location: 1 Colonel Samuel Smith Park Dr.
“I would love for visitors to understand that they’re entering … a space where they will be seeing other lands and experiences through art,” says Moreira, and according to the curator, this installation by asinnajaq sets the tone for the Etibicoke exhibition.
Outside the Assembly Hall, visitors will encounter a video monitor draped in a sort of fabric waterfall. A pile of earth and berries will be placed below it. On the screen, viewers will see a video of the artist swimming in a river, struggling to fight the current.
The installation also includes a road sign that bears a poetic message: “river piece, submit. Resist.”
Says Moreira: “I think this would be a beautiful entry to the kind of atmosphere and landscape that I’m hoping visitors will find throughout the show.”
Sy Gomes. See Me From a Distance: on cherche une travesti vivant, 2025. (Sy Gomes)
See Me From a Distance: Travesti Billboards / Me Vejam de Longe: Outdoors Travesti / Regarde-moi de loin: Panneaux travesti / Mírame de lejos: Carteleras travesti
Location: Humber Polytechnic – Centre Quad
Moving south toward the centre of the exhibition area, you’ll hit Humber’s Centre Quad. There, Moreira has commissioned Brazilian artist Sy Gomes to create an immersive installation. Double-sided banners featuring billboard-style images will appear throughout the space, and the artist’s collaborator, Kaya, has composed an original soundscape.
The idea is to place viewers inside a “universe that they’re perhaps not familiar with at all,” says Moreira. Gomes is Travesti, a gender identity that’s unique to Latin America. “It’s inside the queer umbrella, inside the trans umbrella,” says the curator. “It doesn’t have a translation.”
The work appearing at Nuit Blanche expands on a past series by Gomes. “This project is about making sure that people know what these lives are and why they matter,” says Moreira.
A preview of Undersight by Cassils. (Cassils)
Undersight
Location: Colonel Samuel Smith Park Skating Trail
To find this project, head to the southern border of the exhibition — though there’s a chance you’ll see it from wherever you start your Nuit.
As you may have read, Donald Trump’s got a list of words that are too “woke” for print. Hundreds of phrases have been deemed suspect by U.S. federal agencies, and as a result, terms like “LGBT,” “disability” and “women” are being disappeared from government websites and documents.
For Nuit Blanche, Cassils — a Canadian performance artist who lives in Los Angeles — will use Morse Code to project the entire list into the sky. To do it, they’ll use their body to block the searing blast of a spotlight. (Moreira says the artist will be donning a fireproof suit and goggles for protection.)
The performance will last all night, and to help viewers decode the dots and dashes, an app will be available for download through the Nuit Blanche website.
North York
What does it mean to be a citizen? What does it mean to make a city together? When Laura Nanni was assembling the program for North York, those questions were pinging around in her head. Her exhibition, Collective Composition, “invites us to reflect on our shared role in shaping urban life,” and in many cases, the works you’ll find in the area are participatory in nature. There’s lots to experience, but these should be your first three stops.
Installation view of a 2022 iteration of Future Perfect by Action Hero and Mia + Eric. (Andrew Williamson)
Future Perfect
Location: Mel Lastman Square
If you’re arriving at Nuit Blanche from the subway, you’ll encounter this project before you even emerge from North York Centre station. Two art collectives (Action Hero and Mia + Eric) have teamed up to cover the exhibition territory with signs. We’re talking billboards, subway ads — even placards that’ll be carried around by other Nuit Blanchers. (Look for volunteers around the square if you want one for yourself; the posters will be distributed during the event.)
They look a lot like magnetic poetry, says Nanni, and every poster is based on an actual city bylaw — which the artists have cut up and rearranged into new (and sometimes silly) statements.
They’re meant to be “playful prompts for alternative futures,” says Nanni. It’s “a way of inviting folks to be more playful and think about how we can be in space together in a way that imagines possibility,” she says. “Bylaws are written, the rules are written. And that means that they can be unwritten too.”
Scene from a past iteration of Double Take by Nancy Tam with Daniel O’Shea/A Wake of Vultures. (Nancy Tam with Daniel O’Shea/A Wake of Vultures)
Double Take
Location: Mel Lastman Square Amphitheatre
You might hear this project before you see it. The piece includes a soundscape that’s been designed to fill the exhibition zone, says Nanni. It’s a soundtrack that captures the many sides of city life, she says. As for the sights, they’re inspired by late night walks in places including Hong Kong, Vancouver — and yes, Toronto.
Art collective A Wake of Vultures (Nancy Tam, Daniel O’Shea and Conor Wylie) have taken field recordings from various urban centres and created an immersive installation inspired by those places. The imagery is abstract, says Nanni, and the project incorporates optical illusions.
Visitors can sit back and watch the projections from the amphitheatre; windows with coloured lenses will change your perception of the imagery. Feeling more active? Clamber on stage and get a different perspective on the layered lighting effects. “It purposely slows you down and is very playful,” says Nanni of the piece. “There are many different ways to engage.”
100 % City Lisbon by Rimini Protokoll, as seen on stage in 2019. (Arnold Poeschl)
100% [City]
Location: North York Civic Centre, Council Chamber
The German theatre group Rimini Protokoll has brought this project to cities around the world, and for Nuit Blanche, they’ve re-imagined the performance as a “participatory installation” where the audience will answer questions via the council chamber’s in-house voting system.
What sort of questions are we talking about? According to Nanni, they’re simple, but often profound. Did you take the subway to Nuit Blanche? Do you own more than one home? Do you believe in the afterlife?
In real time, the data will be collected and visualized for everyone to see. And to give Toronto a sense of how it compares to other places, the installation will incorporate video from past iterations of the project; it’s been mounted in cities including Montreal, Melbourne, Lisbon and Jakarta.
“It makes the complexity of the city visible and tangible,” says Nanni. “The hope is that it also sparks dialogue between folks that are engaging with it.”
Nuit Blanche. From 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 4 to 7 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 5. Multiple locations, Toronto. www.toronto.ca/nuitblanche
