After a conversation about Nocturne, spectacle and the role of art over dinner with friends, “the image of a ferris wheel stuck with me,” says NSCAD instructor Anna Sprague. “Perhaps it has something to do with my obsession with the carnivalesque.” For Nocturne, Sprague has commissioned a 68-foot ferris wheel to sit atop Citadel Hill. It’ll slowly move backwards, be accompanied by reverse carnival music and the help of 28 NSCAD students. Beyond the wheel’s cinematic and epic proportions, the view provides a look at McNabs Island, the homestead of Atlantic Canada’s most successful amusement park operator, Bill Lynch. This is a “new and playful counter-narrative,” says Sprague, “that mirrors the Citadel’s current function as a place of reenactment and entertainment.”
Nocturne piece 300, Citadel Hill