Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2015

Saturday, October 3, 2015, sunset to sunrise

Featuring projects by Allora & Calzadilla, Marlowe Porter, and Catherine Chan

Raptor’s Rapture
by Allora & Calzadilla
Part of HTUOS/HTRON, curated by Agustin Pérez Rubio
Presented in association with the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and University of Toronto Art Centre
The Great Hall, Hart House

Video Installation

Raptor’s Rapture (2012) involves a flute that was carved by homo sapiens 35,000 years ago from the wing bone of a griffon vulture. Unearthed at the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany in 2009 by a team of archaeologists led by Nicholas J. Conrad from the University of Tübingen, Germany, it is the oldest musical instrument found to date. This remarkable discovery brings further evidence of the role of music in early humans’ social network development, demographic and territorial expansion, and ultimately evolutionary survival. The artists invited Bernadette Käfer, a flautist specializing in prehistoric instruments, to attempt to play the flute. This action takes place in the presence of a living griffon vulture—an evolutionary descendant of one of the oldest creatures to have inhabited the earth, and currently threatened with extinction. The film constitutes a moment of sharing with this scavenging bird of prey the musical remains of prehistoric human culture while the acoustic trace, emitted from the flute, presents itself as a time-capsule of sound embedded within the evolutionary emergence of musical capacities in humans.

Muscle Memory
by Marlowe Porter
Independent Project
East Common Room, 1st Floor, Hart House

Dance Performance

Memories exist as synapses in our brains, but they can be translated into action and muscle. Can you recall something memorable to you and how it shaped your physical self? How did it change the way you walk, speak or sleep? Here we investigate the capacity in which our bodies can carry memories, positive or negative, triumphant and failed. The work involves a creative process that utilizes various methods to physicalize personal and collective memory, through sharing a memory of intimacy, of being scared or feeling overwhelming joy or a memory of utter sadness. Through vigorous and fluid choreography we take our memories and bring them back to life conveying them in their most visceral form, through flesh, bone and breath.

I’ve Got Sunshine on a Cloudy Day
by Catherine Chan
Part of 10 for 10th – Memory Lane curated by Che Kothari
Co-Produced by the City of Toronto and Justina M. Barnicke Gallery/University of Toronto Art Centre
University College Quadrangle

Light Installation

This illuminated text-art installation is a literal and figurative representation of sunshine. The title and text of the piece come from a lyric in the 1964 pop hit “My Girl” by The Temptations and reflects on the power of love and light to help us through difficult times. The artist is interested in the ways that love opens our hearts and how our memories of love evolve over time. This light installation also considers the ways in which our memories can be affected by mental health conditions such as seasonal affective disorder – a type of depression that tends to recur each year as daylight hours become shorter with winter’s approach. Light therapy – the re-creation of sunlight – is one of the treatments for SAD. What is your sunshine on a cloudy day? What brings light to darkness?

Artists

Jennifer Allora (USA) and Guillermo Calzadilla (Cuba) live and work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Collaborating since 1995, Allora & Calzadilla represented the USA in the 54th Venice Biennale. They have had a number of solo exhibitions in museums around the world and participated in numerous group exhibitions, including in documenta 13, the 29th São Paulo Biennial and Performance 9 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Marlowe Porter creates dance works that investigate the moving body in urban landscapes. This is the first piece she has created for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche.

Catherine Chan is a visual artist whose work encompasses themes of environmental and social sustainability, memory and impermanence. In 2010, Catherine graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver with a BFA in Photography. Prior to attending art school, she was a research scientist in the natural sciences after completing a BSc degree at the University of Toronto and an MSc degree at the University of Guelph. Her experiences in the natural sciences continue to inform her practice.