Halifax has a rich history of alternative art spaces, most of which are adorably wee. Gallery Deluxe Gallery, The Wallet Gallery (a white wallet, obvs), 161 Gallon Gallery, The Bathroom Gallery and The Microgallery all kept our fascination with diminutive art spaces alive. Noah Derek Logan puts the idea of a little white cube gallery on wheels with, well, a white cube on wheels. Six White Cubes is a convoy of six cube vans filled with the imaginative projects of six pairs of artists (matched by Logan according to their disparate art practices). Driving around during Nocturne, it's a blink-and-you-miss-it scenario, Logan says: "It will only be by chance that you catch one of these unique projects."
"This idea came from me wanting to challenge the rigidity of the way you traverse Nocturne and how you can plan out your night. With our projects you may see one of them four times and never see another one," says Logan.
Last year, Logan's van-based project for Nocturne drew followers---in the Mobile Pancake Vehicle, Logan exchanged fresh pancakes for "a token of the spectator or participant, be it a joke, a card, a kiss, a candy."
While last year's Nocturne project had Logan in a hands-on role, this year he's more of a backseat driver as the curator of the project. "I am interested in the ideas that this project is art within art: my rules and curatorial ideas and other people's artistic projects. I am interested in setting up artists from different backgrounds, in different stages in their careers and different mediums to see what they come up with."
As Logan says, there is no guarantee as to which vans (if any) you may see on the evening of October 15, but it is well worth it to keep an eye out for all six projects. Liam Logan and Michael Fernandes have created a project around construction and pedestrian traffic. Dressing as construction workers, they aim to impede the Nocturne traffic. Paul Hammond and Paul Doucette are using their van to project a live talk show, one that encourages audience participation, finally a good chance to yell out "GO JERRY!" on the streets of Halifax. Andrew Mazerolle and Eleanor King are doing a ghost of music venues past crawl, showing a ghosted image and playing music at each location. Sarah Gibealt and Neil Lapierre will combine drawing, painting and performance in their van and Allison Higgins and Derrick Dixon revive the barter system with "cheesy" Nocturne trinkets in a movable souvenir shop. April Dean and Arianne Pollet-Brannen are combining their shared interests in "materiality, the human body, the fragment and the allusiveness of skin." Look for a garment that simultaneously encases the van while being worn by a live model.
Logan's idea of the van imitating the white space of a gallery is a bit of a wink to the viewer, playing on the creepy idea of climbing into a stranger's van and juxtaposing it with the discomfort some people feel about entering a gallery. But shyness won't win you any points on Saturday. Ignore all your ingrained reflexes from years of Block Parent program videos and step right up.
