Transcendent Nuit Blanche Toronto exhibition remains on view through October 10

TORONTO, Oct. 2, 2016 /CNW/ - Last night and into the early hours of Sunday, residents and visitors alike embarked on an all-night exploration of art throughout the city for the 11^th edition of Nuit Blanche Toronto. Audiences were exposed to a full sensory experience of nearly 90 contemporary art projects ranging from sculpture and performance art to interactive installations and mixed-media, and beyond.

Highlights of the night included:

• a water screen projection underneath the Freedom Arches of Nathan Phillips Square ("Pneuma" by Floria Sigismondi)
• 720 watches each stopped at a different minute, displaying all possible hour and minute combinations of a 12-hour clock ("The Museum of Broken Watches" by Trevor Mahovsky and Rhonda Weppler)
• a 16-mm silent film performing a silent dedication entirely in American Sign Language ("Silent Dedication" by Shary Boyle)
• a river of 10,000 donated books, by The Salvation Army Thrift Store, overflowing down the steps of Old City Hall ("Literature vs. Traffic" by Luzinterruptus)
• a 45-foot diameter sun ("Death of the Sun" by Director X) illustrating its life cycle and eventual death
• a digital painting built from 3D scans that audiences could enter through a specially designed app ("The Merging" by Nicola Verlato)
• a canopy of approximately 1,700 fabric streamers exploring the underbelly of the ocean ("Ocean" by Philip Beesley)
• five evocative composed scents representing the olfactory landscape of the Toronto sky ("Ascension" by Julie C. Fortier)
• 1,200 watercolour paintings, each depicting a cell in a large-scale animated short ("Scenes of Failure" by Enrique Marty)
• more than 24 hours of footage of the Niagara Escarpment representing the disparate origins of the water that flows into Lake Ontario ("Fallen Water" by Kevin Cooley)

For the past 11 years, Nuit Blanche Toronto has fostered cultural engagement, making contemporary art accessible to a mass and diverse audience. Official attendance and economic impact figures for Nuit Blanche Toronto 2016 will be released in November. Plans are already underway for the 12^th edition of the event on September 30, 2017.

The exhibition "OBLIVION" will remain on display through October 10 at Nathan Phillips Square and inside Toronto City Hallas a result of support from the Province through Celebrate Ontario, the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund and Tourism Toronto, allowing audiences to revisit and experience three projects: "Death of the Sun" from Director X, "Pneuma" from Floria Sigismondi, and "Ocean" from Philip Beesley, sponsored by H&M. Show times can be found online at http://nbto.com/.

More information and high-resolution images of event highlights and Extended Projects are available at https://nbto.com/program/art-projects/extension.html.

About Nuit Blanche Toronto
Nuit Blanche Toronto is the city's annual all-night celebration of contemporary art, produced by the City of Toronto in collaboration with Toronto's arts community. Since 2006, this award-winning event has featured nearly 1,300 art installations by approximately 4,600 artists and has generated over $268 million in economic impact for Toronto. Nuit Blanche Toronto is a 10-day program which includes the Nuit Talks series and Extended Projects. Look for information and updates at http://nbto.com/, on Facebook at http://wwww.facebook.com/nuitblancheTO, Twitter at @nuitblancheTO, Instagram at @nuitblancheTO and Snapchat at nuitblancheTO. The event hashtag is #nbTO16.

Toronto is Canada's largest city, the fourth largest in North America, and home to a diverse population of about 2.8 million people. It is a global centre for business, finance, arts and culture and is consistently ranked one of the world's most livable cities. For information on non-emergency City services and programs, Toronto residents, businesses and visitors can visit http://www.toronto.ca, call 311, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or follow us @TorontoComms.

SOURCE City of Toronto

Image with caption: "Pneuma by Floria Sigismondi, Nuit Blanche Toronto, 2016 (CNW Group/City of Toronto)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161002_C9368_PHOTO_EN_44792.jpg

Image with caption: "Literature vs. Traffic by Luzinterruptus, Nuit Blanche Toronto, 2016 (CNW Group/City of Toronto)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161002_C9368_PHOTO_EN_44791.jpg

Image with caption: "Silent Dedication by Shary Boyle, Nuit Blanche Toronto, 2016 (CNW Group/City of Toronto)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161002_C9368_PHOTO_EN_44793.jpg

Media contact: 
Justine Palinska
Economic Development and Culture
416-395-7318
[e-mail]