A Short Story About Sidewalks is one of five can’t-miss projects at this year’s Nocturne, a site-specific art festival that has things popping up all over Halifax from Oct. 13 to 15. Read more about the other Nocturne projects we’re most excited about here.
“I think in the simplest sense, Halifax means home for me,” writes artist Dilshan Weeerasinghe in an email to The Coast about the Nocturne project he co-created with multi-hyphenate creatives Nathaniel Cole and Nathan Simmons, titled A Short Story About Sidewalks. “I feel like I’m wired to the place: It’s where I feel most comfortable, where I feel most like myself. There are so many parts of Halifax that I think make the city what it is, and what makes the place resonate with me. But to just focus on a few, I think some parts that are essential to the city, that make it what it is, is the sense of multiculturalism that is so important here, and often overlooked—the numerous immigrant communities around the city, the African Nova Scotian communities that have been here for generations, the Mi’kmaq people who have been here since the beginning, and the role they play in the culture of our city. Where we get the donairs from, where we get the late night shawarma from, the people we grow up around, the people giving us music, culture, history, art, and the people who’ve held this land for as long as we know. These folks and communities are so integral to our city and its identity.”
A Short Story About Sidewalks asks what Halifax is—what it means to each of us, and what we make it. It is equal parts love letter and snapshot, a moment to think about why we live in this place in a time that feels like an apex of great change (just count the cranes dotting construction sites around the city—or recall that the most recent census says Halifax has the fastest-growing downtown in all of Canada). As the artists’ statement puts it, the project is “A listening room filled with photography of the city of Halifax, with an EP of music playing through speakers, so festival goers can walk around the space, take in sights, sounds, and stories about legacies in Halifax,” that’s on view from 8-11pm Oct. 13-15 at the Halifax Brewery Farmers Market. If a city is a living organism, if the city you call yours is an ephemeral experience, if home makes us as much as we make it, this will prove to be the pause you didn’t know you needed to consider your own footing in this place.
“I don’t think Halifax changed me, I think Halifax made me,” adds Weeerasinghe. “So much of how I see the world, how I see music, how I see myself—goals, ideas, art—is based in this place. Growing up, I didn’t dream about playing music in legendary venues. I wanted to play at local places like The Seahorse. It was the mecca for me, that was the dream, and I always thought of my favourite local artists that way: They were the folks I really looked up to.…Still to this day, that’s how I think of being an artist, and being a person: All my benchmarks of making music, and being part of a community, are based here, in our venues, in our scene, in all of the communities here.”
This article appears in Oct 1 – Nov 6, 2022.
