CLOSER TOGETHER

Toronto, Ontario, 2024

Curated by Su-Ying Lee and Laura Nanni for Nuit Blanche

With no stage or field the spectators become the spectacle when two grandstands are positioned face-to-face. Collapsing the distance between the bleachers turns the audience into the performance and the interactions between them become the artwork. As a physical prompt and as a ‘social infrastructure’ the work aims to bring people together and encourages them to interact with one another. “Closer Together” is meant to be a welcoming place for people of all ages and identities to gather and an armature to foster improvised encounters and discussions across generations and cultural barriers, offering sparks of curiosity and engagement and opportunities for rest and reflection over the long Nuit Blanche night.

A cross of yellow construction string lights compliment the infrastructural aesthetic while emphasizing the bleachers as a beacon for social interaction. Forty orange wool blankets are laid out for use as cushions or for staying warm during the overnight art festival. The off-the-shelf familiarity of the work’s components will make it easy and intuitive to use, while the de-contextualization and the unusual arrangement will prompt participants to consider the theme of Bridging Distance.

As both a conceptual and an ecological approach, “Closer Together” engaged the ephemeral nature of Nuit Blanche by working only with elements that could be reused so that the installation produced zero waste. Afterward, the bleachers were returned to the rental company, the string lights and the blankets were donated to charity.