Nuit Blanche Toronto is back! Plan your night out with these insider tips

For the first time since 2019, Nuit Blanche Toronto is set to return as a city-wide outdoor extravaganza. It all begins Saturday at sundown, but Canada's top all-night art thing won't be the same as you remember it. This Nuit Blanche is going to be bigger — way bigger — than anything that's come before it, comprising more than 175 free public art projects and stretching beyond the usual programming hubs (downtown and Scarborough) to reach new zones in North York and Etobicoke. 

As per tradition, the action starts at 7 p.m. and lasts until the sun comes up. That's a full 12 hours to explore the program, and while most people won't be pinging around the GTA to see it all, there'll be at least one person attempting the ultimate Nuit Blanche experience, and that's the event's artistic director Julie Nagam. 

"I want to go see everything!" she says, and she's determined to make it happen. Since joining Nuit Blanche for the 2020 edition, Nagam's never had the chance to do Nuit from the street. In 2021, the event went into hibernation. The year prior, Nuit was almost entirely digital, and the AR and VR projects created for that lockdown version follow the same curatorial theme as the 60+ commissioned works that are part of this weekend's event. 

A singular curatorial focus is another first for Nuit. Expect to find projects that explore a few central topics: our relationship to the environment is a recurring subject, as is inter-cultural connection.

So which Nuit projects are worth the risk of sleep debt? That all depends on you. 

What do you want to get out of the experience? Is Nuit an excuse to party all night long, or are you chasing pure spectacle and wonder? Maybe you need to get the kids out of the house — or you just want something to Instagram.

To navigate this year's program, CBC Arts asked Nagam to play concierge. Whatever you're looking for, she has insider tips for your Nuit.

Nobody can predict the big "social media moments" of the night, but Nagam has a few educated guesses. These works, for example, are begging to be photographed.

Untying Space, Sun K. Kwak

Made with masking tape and adhesive vinyl, this abstract whorl will envelop the Deloitte building at Bay and Adelaide downtown. "She's done pieces in Tokyo and other really great spots," says Nagam of the artist, who's based in New York. "That piece will probably be photographed a lot."

Location: 8 Adelaide St. W (downtown)

Tailings Pool, Tsēmā

Could this be the ultimate urban oasis? Thanks to Vancouver artist Tsēmā, the Scarborough Civic Centre is getting an outdoor pool for Nuit. "That piece is going to be huge," says Nagam, and performers in bathing suits will be roaming the site. The project is hardly a pool party, though. Visitors: you can look, but don't splash. "It's actually a commentary on extraction and mining," Nagam explains.

Location: 156 Borough Dr. (Scarborough)