APPETITE FOR ART
Nuit Blanche uses food as muse
Nuit Blanche Saskatoon shifts focus in its third year to a more intimate exchange between artist and audience as it moves to a new location and adds a guest curator.
Wayne Baerwaldt, founding curator of Nuit Blanche Calgary, chose artists who responded to the theme of Creative Cuisine as an Agent of Change.
“I really wanted to showcase the absurdity of a particular theme, food, our collective connections to food whether you are rich or poor. Artists bring a different sort of perspective to the idea of cuisine or food sources and I thought it might be interesting to have them poke around in that subject matter and see what they come up with,” he said. “They either embrace the theme or they reject it and give you something better.”
Though the previous two events took place on a 20th Street closed to traffic, this year’s one-night art festival moved to a more “neutral zone” in Victoria Park and River Landing. Baerwaldt said the move was in part a response to criticism Nuit Blanche faced in 2015 related to the gentrification of Riversdale and perceived lack of aboriginal inclusion.
Baerwaldt said featuring aboriginal artists in Saskatoon is a no-brainer, not based on their race but the quality of their work and their artistic voice.
“Some of the best artists in Canada just happen to be of aboriginal descent,” he said.
One of this year’s featured pieces is by Adrian Stimson. In Let Them Eat Pie, his alter ego Buffalo Boy will make his legendary bison pies in the form of a live cooking class.
Charlene Vickers will showcase her solo performance Occupy Anishinabe Park 1974. Actor Curtis Peeteetuce will perform his storytelling piece Immemorial.
Baerwaldt placed an emphasis on performative pieces when choosing artists. He wanted to reach audiences in a different way than the way a stationary sculpture does.
He is interested in the new ways people might see the park when exposed to artists’ interpretation of the space.
Franz Wassermann’s Me, Myself and I will have volunteers ducttaped to the outdoor gym at River Landing as a critique on western culture’s obsession with diet and exercise.
Elsewhere in the park, Cory Schewaga will showcase Ukrainian heritage and create community through the making of perogies.
Linda Duvall and Alana Moore will distribute cupcakes throughout the night, each with a message from someone who wasn’t able to attend Nuit Blanche. It’s less about the food than it is about the exchange of ideas.
Though some of the performances include edible items, Baerwaldt recognizes it’s impossible to feed everyone. More than 10,000 people are expected to attend the event.
“We’re not feeding the world. We’re using food as a symbolic gesture in the artmaking process,” he said.
For those with rumbling stomachs, eight to 10 food trucks will be on site.
Though not everyone will be involved directly in participating in the pieces, Baerwaldt hopes each creates waves of energy throughout the event site.
Baerwaldt was born north of Regina and went to high school and university in Saskatchewan’s capital city.
He has worked as director/curator at the Alberta College of Art + Design, the Power Plant in Toronto and Plug In in Winnipeg. He was also a curator at Nuit Blanche Toronto in 2007 and 2008. He’s now primarily based on a farm south of Assiniboia.
He said each Nuit Blanche has its own personality. One of the major differences between Toronto and Saskatoon’s version of the event, aside from scale, is the inclusion of beer gardens.
“I’m all for having a martini or several, but I think the event can then segue into something else, into debauchery and not really being focused on the artists presenting something,” he said.
It’s intimate, but that’s part of what makes Nuit Blanche Saskatoon special, he said.
“I suppose we don’t have as many bells and whistles and bubbles and lightning machines. It’s more of an intimate relationship we’re asking for between the public and the performers in most cases.”