Theme & Curatorial Advisory
Nuit Blanche Toronto marks its 20th anniversary by reflecting on two decades of art and artists transforming the city. Through collaboration with thousands of artists locally and globally, from the new to the established, Nuit Blanche has altered Toronto’s streets, cultural spaces and audiences in an all-night celebration of art.
Many temporary artworks created for Nuit Blanche no longer exist, living on only in personal and collective memory and experience. Some artists are no longer with us while others are now household names. Some venues have shuttered, while others have moved or transformed, and new spaces have emerged. Art and creativity endure in Toronto, adapting to the everchanging landscape, yet much has changed in twenty years.
Tomorrow’s Memories looks back to the artists, curators, communities and places that defined Nuit Blanche and hold its histories. But this is not just about the past, it’s a way to look at the present and a provocation for the future. Past Nuit Blanche artworks will be revisited, re-visioned and recontextualized while artists can also create new works that consider personal and collective memory and histories as a tool for storytelling, reflection and dreaming of possible futures. Projects may also explore ideas around memory itself, nostalgia and ephemerality.
This milestone edition offers both a reckoning and a reimagining, reflecting on not only where it has been, but on where it is now and where it might be going next.
Esmond Lee
Esmond Lee is a community-engaged artist, architect and Ph.D. candidate in Critical Human Geography at York University. He holds a Master of Architecture from University of Toronto and has practiced architecture for over a decade across diverse building typologies before returning to academia. Informed by these ongoing practices, Lee’s research interests include migration, collective identity, belonging and nuanced spatial practices of resistance against state and capital.
Shannon Linde
Shannon Linde is a curator and artistic producer based in Toronto. She is currently the Senior Curator with EQ Bank where she oversees a growing collection of contemporary Canadian art and a broader arts program geared at supporting early-career digital artists. Linde is also a founding member of Aisle 4, a Toronto-based curatorial collective that commissions socially-engaged artist projects in the public realm.
Ryan Rice
Ryan Rice, Kanien’kehá:ka of Kahnawake, is a Toronto-based curator, critic and creative consultant. With a curatorial career spanning over 35 years, he has worked across communities, museums, artist-run centres, public spaces and galleries. Rice currently serves as Executive Director and Curator, Indigenous Art at OCAD University’s Onsite Gallery. His most recent curatorial projects are Skennen’kó:wa ken? (Do You Carry Great Peace?) for the Canadian Pavilion at the 16th edition of the Gwangju Biennale and the retrospective exhibition Rosalie Favell | Belonging (1982–2024), which is touring across Canada until 2028.
Camilla Singh
Camilla Singh is an artist, curator and cultural strategist with more than 20 years of experience creating projects across public, institutional and non-traditional environments. She works through a mindset of inquiry, drawing insight from unlikely sources. She is developing a speculative comic book universe with transdisciplinary extensions into gaming, A/VR, sculpture and performance. Her thinking follows unexpected vectors, drawing parallels between art and athleticism, where rhythm, repetition and responsiveness are shared structures.
