Nocturne is Halifax’s independent, free, contemporary art festival at night that takes place from October 12-15. Saturday, October 14 is the big night, when visual artists and performers take over the city’s indoor and outdoor spaces with over 80 projects come to life.
As the province’s leading cultural institution, NSCAD alumni, faculty, staff, and students always make significant contributions as artists and as hard-working volunteers who make this amazing event possible. Here are a few NSCAD-related shows to see:
Echoes Calling Back
Associate Professor Jordan Bennett expands Indigenous stories and adds to Indigenous traditions by continuing to explore the connection between land , animal kin and community by activating the AGNS courtyard and inviting viewers to connect with these ideas from various entry points. Animal kin, fauna and petroglyphs from Mi’kmaw territory, inspire viewers to think through their relationship with the land in its past, present and future states.
Qiaqsutuq
Featuring Jamesie Fournier, Coco Lynge, Erin Gingrich, Malayah Enooyah Maloney & Taqralik Partridge
Created at NSCADU’s CIMADE Lab and produced by Inuit Futures and the Inuit Art Foundation, this artwork is the result of an artist incubator that took place in the summer of 2023 in Kjipuktuk/ Halifax. In Inuktitut, qiaqsutuq is the sound of the whistling wind and the sound of crying. In this collaborative multimedia installation created by five artists from across Inuit Nunaat (from their Inuit homelands in Alaska, Canada and Greenland) qiaqsutuq is critically imagined as a lament for nuna, tariuq, and sila, a chorus of its Arctic inhabitants from the land, sea and sky.
Dreaming the land
by Sydney Wreaks, Carrie Allison, Nat Chantel, Jenny Yujia Shi, Emily Davidson, Aiden Gillis & Tayla Paul
Dreaming the Land envisions ways of dismantling the structures of settler-colonial realities through a more holistic lens. The curator’s offer, “Dreaming challenges us to reimagine the reality created and imposed on us by and through settler-colonial dominance. Reimagining encourages us to consider a different worldview that honours the autonomy, animacy and agency of Mother Earth.”
Wayfinding Care Project for Nocturne: Art at Night
by Melissa Marr, Heather Wilkinson (BFA 1995) & Leesa Hamilton (Faculty)
The Wayfinding Care Project is a participatory delivery service that matches the routes of Nocturne: Art at Night festival attendees with artist performers to bring them care packages. The care packages will include nourishing soup, jar cozy, care messages and spoon! The project is led by the artists Melissa Marr, Heather Wilkinson, and Leesa Hamilton, along with a dedicated group of artists and volunteers!
Activating Art in Mi’kma’ki
Visual Arts Nova Scotia and Visual Arts News, in partnership with the Native American Art Studies Association and Nocturne: Art at Night Festival, present an in-person keynote panel discussion: Activating Art in Mi’kma’ki on Thursday, October 12, from 6 – 8 pm.
Moderating the discussion is Tiffany Morris, an L’nu’skw (Mi’kmaw) artist and writer from Kjipuktuk (Halifax), Nova Scotia, who will discuss with Jordan Bennett, Jordan Hill, Amy Malbeuf, Carrie Allison and Melissa Peter-Paul their lived experiences in Mi’kma’ki, how their environments contribute to the type of work they create, and offer insight into their work being exhibited as part of Nocturne this year.
Making Space: Rainbow Refugee Pottery Program
by Andrea Puszkar (BFA 1999)
An art show displaying sculpture, pottery, film and photographs created by artists involved in the Rainbow Refugee Association of Nova Scotia pottery program: Ralph and Rose Chiodo Gallery from October 12- 15th. Pottery workshops and demonstrations: Saturday October 14th from 1- 5 pm in the Rail Side Room.
The Rainbow Refugee pottery program has been offering free art and pottery classes to LGBTQIA+ newcomers since March 2023. This program is funded by Arts NS and offers weekly classes to 9 participants, led by artist Andrea Puszkar.
By Her Hand: Contemporary Quilts Inspired by the Nova Scotia Museum’s quilt collection
by Marilyn Smulders (BFA 2019) & Andrea Tsang Jackson
By Her Hand: Contemporary Quilts Inspired by the Nova Scotia Museum is an exhibition of contemporary quilts inspired and informed by historic quilts in the Nova Scotia Museum’s collection.
The museum will be open with free admission on Saturday Oct 14, 2023 from 4:30pm to midnight for Nocturne participants. Visit all of the galleries and say hello to Gus.
New works by two contemporary Nova Scotian designers and quiltmakers, Andrea Tsang Jackson and Marilyn Smulders, have been created in response to very special examples of historic quilts chosen in collaboration with Lisa Bower, Assistant Curator at the Nova Scotia Museum. The installation will include various quilted objects such as bed quilts and quilted garments.
IN THIS HOUSE
by TUSH, Shuvanjan Karmaker & DJ Douvet
IN THIS HOUSE will explore histories of soul, funk, and house music, highlighting the past pioneers who shaped the genre and the new generation of musicians that are pushing the genre forward today (TUSH, DJ Douvet, Shuvanjan Karmaker). This will be executed through live musical performances of house music and its predecessors (disco, funk, soul, jazz) and the subgenres that proliferated out of these genres over time. This event takes place at the FAB.
Till the tide
by Jessie Fraser (Current student)
Till the Tide is a site-specific textile installation comprising three hand-woven jacquard pieces. Each textile measures roughly 65’’ x 28’’ and is woven with black cotton and white linen thread. These three panels depict a single image that is meant to be installed on the Queen’s Landing steps on the Halifax waterfront.
Meander/Drift
by Lauren Runions (Current student), Marite Kuus, Lou Campbell & Eastern Front Theatre
MEANDER is a sensuous geography directing you through inquiry and reflection.
DRIFT invites you to feel connected
MEANDER is a sensuous geography directing you through inquiry and reflection. This double spiral labyrinth is an uninterrupted shell for (the illusion of) isolation. Meditation, solitude, wander, rest.
DRIFT is a two part sound installation to be experienced while entering, moving through, and exiting the labyrinth. It asks listeners where they feel most connected to the universe, and invites them to think about being alone as a chance to make space for that connection.
SculptShore: The Ember of a Legacy Still Shines
by Elizabeth Wile, Alan Syliboy & Bern Art Maze
A 6-metre-long fillable sculpture of a North Atlantic right whale is at the heart of a unique conservation collaboration underway across the Maritimes that aims to focus on the solutions and bring direct action to the impact ocean debris is having on Atlantic shorelines and marine species.
Project SculptShore is empowering communities through education, solutions, and direct action to answer the urgent call to action required to help save the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. This art-meets-action initiative is centered around a life-size interactive replica of a less-than-a-year-old calf, whose mother is the famous North Atlantic right whale Snow Cone.
New Work by Geordan Moore
by Geordan Moore (BDes 2007)
Original silkscreen prints, drawings, and mixed media work by Geordan Moore.
fissure
by Carrie Allison, Jordan Bennett, Jordan Hill & Amy Malbeuf
In this inter-media digital collaboration, multidisciplinary Indigenous artists Jordan Bennett (Mi’kmaw, Ktaqmkuk), Amy Malbeuf (Métis, Rich Lake, Alberta), Carrie Allison (nêhiýaw/cree, Métis, and mixed European descent), and Jordan Hill (T’Sou-ke Nation), visualize the fissures, gaps, and spaces between devastation and renewal.
Queer affections to remedy the unseeable Museum Queeries Cluster, Thinking Through the Museum.
by Adrienne Huard & Mahlet Cuff
Who has access to queer spaces, and what happens when they start disappearing? Making connections between shortages of queer spaces in both Winnipeg and Halifax, this exhibition aims to create its own queer liminal environment in support of Black, brown, and Indigenous 2SLGBTQIA++ communities.
Acknowledging the profound queer histories of these two mid-sized city centres, we commit to the urgent need to highlight voices that have been excluded and erased from history, and lift up all those who have been left out. From drag performances, music videos, photography, and installations, Treaty Space Gallery is transformed by artists from both Winnipeg and the Atlantic region into a multidimensional space that illustrates our diverse and expansive queer creative expressions while leaving room to learn about the functionality and growth of the queer Halifax community.