Halifax Law Courts plaza courtyard The story of North American colonialism is one we all know—but maybe not as well as we should. A Nocturne project titled For This Land will get you more familiar, exploring what co-creator Jackson 2bears calls, in his artist’s statement, “an incommensurability between Western theology and Indigenous spirituality.” The multimedia […]
Nocturne
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Nocturne 2016: Art is all around you
The ninth annual Nocturne is your yearly booster shot of installations, interactive art, multimedia pieces, performances and more crammed into one night. On Saturday, October 15, from 6pm to midnight, art is spread out over 5 zones in Halifax and Dartmouth: Zone 1 (downtown Halifax), zone 2 (Halifax waterfront), zone 3 (Spring Garden), zone 4 […]
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Take Cover
South boardwalk of Dartmouth Ferry Terminal Ryan Josey was finishing this year’s Nocturne application when his newsfeed became flooded with reports of the tragic Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando. “I called the project Take Cover hours before it happened. A synchronicity occurred that I had to take on. The shooting became my emotional place of […]
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The Thundermaker
Anna Leonowens Gallery 1 window Few Mi’kmaq stories remain in their original form. “There are only two stories found in their original form, not compromised [through translation],” artist Alan Syliboy says. The story of “The Stone Canoe,” recently rediscovered after 150 years, is one of these, a story that’s taken on larger significance for Syliboy. […]
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Drum Voices is must-see, must-hear
“Drum Voices is a sound piece that transports the drum to a place before time,” says drummer Lindsay Dobbin (Gift From God). On the Dartmouth Common, Dobbin will present a surround-sound installation of a choir of drum parts, to create a full-body experience that is out of this world. Dobbin, who is trained in Shamanic […]
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It’s a Halifax made of shoes
“This was inspired by the Nocturne theme this year, Found and Lost and Found, and the changing of social spaces,” says material-artist Kim Danio. “You know The Economy Shoe Shop? I thought, I just have to make a shoe out of the Shoe Shop, and it all went from there.” Using recycled and found materials, […]
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Digital Shrine pays heartwarming homeage to the dead
Sharon Stevens’ Digital Shrine—an interactive installation you can experience at the gates of Camp Hill Cemetery—was sparked by her father’s death. When he died 20 years ago, the funeral and service “did not speak to me, did not ‘hold’ me in a way I could relate to,” recalls Stevens. Digital Shrine explores new and old […]
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Taking the grain elevators to dynamic new heights
Veronique Mackenzie, Lukas Pearse and Susan Tooke have been working together under the name Motion Activated for five years. Together, they’re “especially intrigued by integrating technologies and stretching the potentials of time and space,” Mackenzie explains. Their Nocturne piece will project a dancer on the wall of the south end grain elevators, moving amid historic […]
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Artful artifice: The Maiden’s Tragedy
Alysse Bowd aims to shatter “the castle and the cloud” illusion associated with fairytale or heroine plot arcs at Nocturne this year. Through sculpture and motion, her piece The Maiden’s Tragedy suggests that this fantasy ideal isn’t linear—and it definitely isn’t realistic. “We are always in this constant cycle of wandering, catastrophe and seclusion,” she […]
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Nocturne 2015: how to party arty
“We love for people to experience Nocturne and see what the artists in their community are actually doing,” says Nocturne coordinator Kim Farmer. “They’re creating projects specifically for the night, and most are creating them specifically for this year’s theme, Found and Lost and Found. It’s about our changing city, about the changes that happen […]
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Safety Cages puts artists behind bars
In Ken Burke’s wearable art piece Safety Cages, four people wearing welded steel cages will make their ways through Nocturne crowds, responding to the movements of the crowd and each other. The cages take four different designs, each cumbersome in varying degrees. Burke calls a cage in a standard birdcage-type form “a little passive,” while […]