The History of Nuit Blanche
Originating in Paris in 2002, and exported to Toronto and Montreal in 2003, Nuit Blanche is an all-night* art festival that opens each city up to exploration of the visual and performing arts.
The 2025 Approach
An eclectic and vibrant city which is still home to artists not yet priced out by unchecked soaring rents, Montreal is a cultural hotspot. In March, the city brings out a hook to draw residents and tourists out of their homes in frigid temperatures: Nuit Blanche.
This year, the city elected to combine this programming with the Winter festival of lights, Lumino. It seemed most visitors, including ourselves at times, were unclear on which activity or activation belonged to what; just happy to see something. Generally, if it involved lights and was outside, that something was Lumino.
Despite the early week teasing Spring, Friday plunged Montreal deeper into snow, and Saturday’s temperatures menaced my three camera batteries. Still, powered by coffee, we pressed on. Starting from the Old Port–which largely had no activation, we moved centrally and then to the Mile End.
*disclaimer: It was -14 Celsius, and we were very tired after over six hours of walking, so all-night was really 6pm-1am.
Palais Des Congres
Our starting point for the evening was the family-friendly Montreal Convention Centre, Palais Des Congres. Here, setting up a parameter for gathering and participation in some activity was the concept, and the resulting action, the art:
- An evolving mural against a Nuit-Blanche branded wall was building up, layer by chaotic layer, below-the-knee coverage provided by small children with giant acrylic paint markers.
- Large scale versions of Jenga made for higher stakes in the precarious game, creating a spectacle of play for a crowd of onlookers.
- A silent disco, where headphones worn by every dancer played the same song underlined something rather common–many of us isolated in experience of the world by the song playing just for us in our ears. Here, this experience was made communal and joyous.
CHSLD Paul-Émile-Léger
A special mention of the CHSLD who activated their long term care home for residents to enjoy face-painting and storytelling. An inclusion of a community often overlooked into a night’s festivities. While we visited, we did not take photos, but did see residents enjoying a live DJ and painting both faces and canvasses.
Place des Arts
Kaleidoscope: A Social Media Trinity, by +Amor (aka Alejandro Figueroa)
Kaleidoscope is a prismatic installation of dizzying images culled from social media via programmatic instruction to cull by hashtag. With a line hours long to enter the structure, my experience of Kaleidoscope was of a watcher, observing the crowd interacting with the walk-in projection.
From the close sidelines, I had the opportunity to ask the artist questions and learn about the piece beyond the didactic panel. A reflection on social media, specifically the creation, dissemination and consumption of images, Figueroa’s intention is to closely immerse the viewer in a cacophony of distorted images; #echochamber is this version’s meta-hashtag.
Much like Yayoi Kusama’s famed iterative installations of Infinity Mirrored Room, Figueroa’s work seemed designed to act as a flame to the social media moths. Bright colourful lights moving within an enclosed space with just room enough for one at a time? A line will naturally form.
It’s the kind of piece about social media and society that proves its own point–though not always as intended. As Figueroa describes it to me, the overwhelming stimuli of the kaleidoscope of images, a barrage of media based surrounding the person inside the prism, is meant to elicit claustrophobia in the viewer, and once they walk out, the artist hopes they feel a sense of relief at leaving the artificial space, with some awareness of its connection to their scrolling habits. The artist’s statement speaks of the beauty and potential dangers of social media and while the piece is visually beautiful in the patterns produced, I wonder if the message is lost.
What I observe is an antsy desperation to get in (conceptually this aligns to a need to open an app and get the hit of dopamine) but once in, it’s not panic at an enclosed space, but giddy delight over the perfect dynamic backdrop for a selfie*.
Exiting, I see visitors eager to review the photos taken to be sure they got the shot–and re-entry if they didn’t.
I see the artist kneeling to take photos for the viewers in the piece, ensuring the best image of his work and the person interacting with it will be shared online. I wonder if it was, in the end, not a nuanced introspection on the issue of social media, the dangers of image production and self-involvement, but more evidence of it.
*we’ll use the term interchangeably for a photo also taken by whichever loved one stands outside, as they function as no more than a hyper-extended arm.
Performance
Further down into the pit of the Place des Arts, a staging of a play through interpretive dance. At least four members trade off in moving to spoken word.
Belgo
Rather than special performances or spectacles planned for the festival, some institutions take Nuit Blanche as an opportunity to open their doors wider, and past bedtime. Montreal’s Belgo building is full of commercial galleries and artist studios, concentrated across five (increasingly uneven) floors.
While this year’s Nuit Blanche offered only a few of them open, those that were became our favorite part of the night, and a reminder why this kind of clustering of creativity is so vital. Seeing just enough to make us add a return to the Belgo in our April schedule.
Cache Gallerie
Cache Gallerie offered some compelling paintings by Emile Brunet and Jasmin Bilodeau, the latter who painted on burlap, as a nod to subject matter. Scenes of pastures, fields and flowers underscored each time by a reminder of a tether to technology, and burlap at a distance coming to resemble the fine mesh of a screen. Brunet’s work depicts contemporary figures in traditional noble garments, and fruit, their skin tattooed with floral or medieval motifs.
Circa
Two artists paired perfectly in satirical reverence for the every day office supply. Louis-Charles Dionne’s carved file folders and 8.5×11 note pads, shaped in marble and slate, etched for detail.
Furthering the theme of elevating overlooked items of use, Chloe Desjardins’ cast doorstops arranged on decorative display shelves like collected thimbles, or spoons, highlight how arbitrary these objects are–the strange selection of what we treasure and display. A little joke wedged into the wall of the installation, another cast doorstop, functioning as intended.
This show slyly demonstrates humor amid the sleek minimalism of the objects presented. The expectation of what art is, seems part of the joke, making this a perfect exhibition for Nuit Blanche.
Mile End
Ending our journey deep in the Mile End at a newer mixed use loft building, home to Lithographie and Risography studios.
Atelier Circulaire
With a play on the studio address, Atelier Circulaire embraced the party atmosphere with their event Studio(54)45. A successful, and well-attended boozy printmaking workshop, with participants creating their own lithographs based on select elements.
No Gloss
No Gloss, a print studio, took an educational approach to festival programming, providing an explanation and demonstration of risograph printing. Color layers, opacity, offsets all demonstrated on a graphic produced for the evening. As a collector of artist multiples, I love risographs and found this little session fun and informative. Though as the last group through the door, I may also be biased at having made it in, and further swayed by the letter-sized Nuit Blanche print given to each in attendance.
People are easy. We like stuff.
As this is a studio available for collaboration and only open by appointment, I appreciated their participation in this festival, and found our host to be energetic despite giving the exact speech and demo throughout the night.
While we were unable to see every activation during Nuit Blanche Montreal, we loved seeing the number of people out trying to catch as many as they could; racing with us up stairs and elevators, and trudging through the snow to enjoy this night of art.
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