Last fall, Stephanie Yee and Lux Habrich made the cover of The Coast, with a 30-foot Chinese dragon between them. That dragon, constructed of clear tarp, was the pair’s Nocturne festival contribution. It took over an expanse of the Halifax waterfront for the duration of the outdoor art celebration, representing themes of identity and anti-Asian […]
Nocturne
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Nocturne wants your project pitches
Nocturne, Halifax’s annual nighttime art extravaganza, dropping a week earlier than usual this year on October 19, is looking for project pitches. The year’s theme, as set by curator Tori Fleming, is SCAFFOLD, which aims to “explore how temporary structures can be used to make a larger commentary on the social, physical, and political structures […]
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Unendorsed Nocturne exhibit vandalizes Halifax waterfront
An anonymous photo-booth cutout of John A. MacDonald was drilled down into the Halifax waterfront during Nocturne last Saturday night, standing for a brief period in opposition to the art festival’s anti-colonialism theme. The cutout was a defence of John A. MacDonald and his relations with Indigenous peoples. It featured an “I’m OK with John […]
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Arts groups pen open letter about AFCOOP sexual assault allegations
Five organizations have released a statement in the wake of accusations of sexual assault against a staff member at the Atlantic Filmmakers’ Co-operative. (As detailed here last week.) The Centre for Art Tapes, Khyber Centre for the Arts, Nocturne, South House Sexual and Gender Resource Centre and Eyelevel Gallery—and all of their staff and board […]
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Holding space for BIPOC artists in the Halifax art world
Nocturne applications will now include a series of optional self-identification questions about race, gender and religion, as a direct result of discourse about the gap in representation and visibility of Black, Indigenous and Persons of Colour within the local visual arts community. Kelly Markovich, the programming director for October 14’s Nocturne festival, says this year […]
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A Nocturne 2017 round-up
Keeping with this year’s “vanish” theme, the art from Saturday night has left the city streets. Thankfully, we have Instagram to keep the memories alive. Check out highlights from Nocturne’s 10th anniversary below. A post shared by Benjamin Lemphers (@blemphers) on Oct 15, 2017 at 8:36am PDT A post shared by Laura Selenzi (@lauraselenzi) on […]
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Wait Outside with Your Necklaces On
Exhibit 117, Public Gardens, 5665 Spring Garden Road A decade ago, Martha Cooley was mugged in the city. A few years back she made a short super-8 film called Wait Outside with Your Necklaces On about that time. “I wanted to transpose that experience—it’s taken me 10 years to think about it, and what the […]
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Folded River
Exhibit 400, Common Roots Urban Farm, Bell Road at Robie Street In Folded River, artist Alex Balkam’s creative process is mined to create an immersive piece of expanded cinema. Working with Thomas Evans and Jonathan Mandeville of Passage Studios, Balkam reconstructs a version of a landscape he’s known since childhood, one that he returns to […]
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Watch Us Vanish
Exhibit 315, Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design, 1096 Marginal Road The average right whale weighs between 54 and 72 tonnes; at Nocturne you’ll be given a pound of clay to make your own. It’s not much, but it’s what Andrea Puszkar and Marla Benton landed on as a tribute to the endangered mammals […]
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Long and White, ‘the road twists like a snake toward the far-off blue places’
Exhibit 303, Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, 1675 Lower Water Street In Long and White, ‘The road twists like a snake toward the far-off blue places’, artist Sarah Burwash’s animation takes us down a strange and looping path, causing us to wonder, “Have I been here before?” Burwash borrows the title from the autobiographical writings […]
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Toqolu’kwetijik
Exhibit 108, Public Gardens 5665 Spring Garden Road With this year’s group of anchor artists all working to activate the Public Gardens, Ursula Johnson and collaborators will be kicking up dust along the gravel paths encircling Griffin Pond. These clear paths, strict rules and enforced designated sitting areas that make up the Public Gardens are known […]
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Pushback
Exhibit 105, Public Gardens, 5665 Spring Garden Road The wrought-iron gates of Halifax’s Public Gardens are an icon in the city’s landscape, but for Nocturne anchor artist Habiba El-Sayed, they also stand as a fruitful metaphor for decolonization. Throughout the night, El-Sayed will push hundreds of pounds of clay back and forth through the wrought-iron […]