Nuit Blanche - Exploring and Reinventing Space in Toronto

For the past two years now Toronto has had the privilege of hosting an all night celebration of contemporary art known as Nuit Blanche. On September 29, 2007, I had the opportunity to attend this free event and experience the streets of Toronto in a new and creative way. Not only was this an event commemorating contemporary art, but it was a vision of space as socially constructed and space as invented and reinvented. For one night the streets of Toronto were reinvented into a public artist playground, but more importantly this urban art intervention theorized and challenged the use and meaning of space, and more specifically ‘public’ space.
Spaces and places are all around us, from the streets that we walk, to the places where our daily activities take us. They are spaces of passage, of interaction, of participation, and of contestation. There are multiple sites of public expression, which constantly change – as users recognize and reinterpret space. Thus, the meanings attached to places and spaces are socially constructed. As such, the use of ‘public’ space reveals an array of possibilities.
Art is one way that challenges the use of space by reinventing its meaning. It does this by using space in unconventional ways to provide a dialogue with participants. It is a form of interaction, participation, and contestation. Nuit Blanche in Toronto is an example of an urban intervention that challenged its participants to explore the streets of Toronto, and how space can be used in different ways. Art urban interventions defy the norms that construct and frame space and inaugurate other possibilities of how space can be used and interpreted differently.
Our knowledge, perceptions, and assumptions - influenced by our class, gender and other socio-economic factors - filter how we see and interpret places and spaces around us. When I attended the event I walked down the streets of Bloor and Yorkville, a high-end façade and posh environment saturated with aristocratic fashion. My perception of this place/space on any given day is one of high prestige and consumerism. However, on the evening of Nuit Blanche I was presented with a completely different image of this space. The borders listed above were temporarily let down at Nuit Blanche to invite a multiplicity of people, regardless of age, class, gender and so on.
Nuit Blanche indirectly raised awareness of the use and design of city space. That is, Nuit Blanche made clear that Torontonians and those from out of town are pedestrians. It was a night where pedestrians took back the streets. Art installations reinvented street space. For instance, an art installation turned Cumberland Street, usually a space intended for vehicle traffic flow, into a pedestrian walkway allowing people to become a part of the art. This art installation turned dead space – a space of movement - into one of social interaction.
Thus, places and spaces and the meanings attached to them are socially constructed. As such, the use of space reveals an array of possibilities. These possibilities were exemplified at Nuit Blanche, as art was used to reinterpret and re-imagine public space, giving new meaning to places and spaces.