Exotic Car Wallpaper

The United Nations (UN) Article 27 describes a universal right of all to participate in the arts and cultural life of the community, I think this was just before the Libyan thing, and the City of Toronto celebrates both the idea and Toronto's local artists with a series of events from April 1st to the 27th of 2011. Within Brookfield Place is an "Urban Landscape" exhibition of photographs under the glass roof of the stately Wayne Manor most commonly known as the Allen Lambert Galleria. These bottom photo is from Hawa Yusuf, mentored by exhibition lead photographer, artist and architect Michael Awad who made the other photos shown.
Mayor Rob Ford will launch the Festival on Thursday, March 31 at 6:30pm at the Galleria.

The 21st annual Kensington Market Winter Solstice happens tonite (Dec 21, 2010) starting at 6:30pm at Oxford at Augusta. The parade finishes later at Alexandra Park around 8:00pm. Come for some fire, light and fun. The lantern festival, or festival of lights, has had a number of name changes but it continues to celebrate the shortest day/longest night of the year during the Winter Solstice.

The streets filled up fast with people gathering for the parade in Kensington Market. Large groups of drummers get a strong beat going and the intersection quickly becomes blocked with revelers moving to the drums. Later the parade and the action at the park is hard to witness because of the lack of space and the amount of people jammed together at the baseball diamond.

“Celebrate the return of light on the longest, darkest night! The Kensington Market Winter Solstice is a participatory lantern parade. Make a lantern, bang a drum, wear a costume, carry a puppet …. This is a people’s celebration.” You can buy lanterns at the Community Centre for $10 and help light the way.

Sad occasions mean it is even more important to gather around your loved ones during this holiday season. The Menorah in Nathan Phillips Square helps to light the way for Hanukkah.

This happy fun time annual festival takes place at Harbourfront Centre down at Queens Quay. The Day of the Dead Festival just begs the question - what is this thing all about? Like our Remembrance Day, this Spanish festival seeks to honour and remember departed friends and family members.
There are no zombies in this celebration - just plenty of skulls and skeletons. A big part of the event is alters with gifts and offerings to the loved ones that have passed on. There was Mexican food, songs and dance available at the Centre and the event is free.

I was waiting for my call to the 13th annual Walk of Fame but I must have missed the ringing phone. To honour some of Canada's true celebrities and others that excel in entertainment, sport and science we have the Walk of Fame event which includes a Tribute Ball, a free festival at Yonge-Dundas Square, concerts featuring the inductees, and the unveiling of the sidewalk stars around Roy Thomson Hall.

The 2010 inductees are David Clayton-Thomas, Nelly Furtado, Doug Henning, Clara Hughes, Eric McCormack, Farley Mowat and Sarah Polley. The Walk was started in 1998 and now has 131 inductees.
The free festival has started in the square and will continue to the 17th and will feature concerts by emerging talent from 12 noon to 11pm each night and a films at 9pm. I caught JRDN doing a few numbers at lunch time (pictured at top) followed by Jacynthe.
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The Canadian Wind Energy Association sponsors the October 2nd, 2010 edition of WindFest which is  Toronto's Waterfront Kite Festival held at Ashbridges Bay. I haven't seen a hot air balloon festival yet but I am hoping that this kite festival comes pretty close. As they say "WindFest is a chance to celebrate autumn, wind power and the breathtaking are of kite flying, on Toronto's largest beach". It's a little cool today so you might want to leave your bathing thong at home.
The kites take to the sky from 11am to 4pm. They also had kids having parachute races.

The magical all-night art thing called Nuit Blanche gets in gear and I have quite a few exhibitions already picked out. My brother and I will be attending on bicycles to help us get around the city. In addition to the famous and extremely popular (my god - the horror of the lineups where even one of the installations is a lineup) art event we will also be checking out it's edgier cousin Les Rues Des Refuses (LRDR) with it's off program events including the Renegade Parade leaving the ROM at 10:02pm.
We headed to Nathan Phillips Square to start the night with "Later that night at the drive in" which was a projection and sound installation. We took pictures before the official start which was slated for 6:57pm to see the preparations required for this massive project. Various triangular apparatus were showing videos on the ceilings, on vertical screens and on the walls of City Hall while a band played on a stage which had an overhanging mirror. The large mirror was very interesting and provided some great views.
Overall the event has to much darkness in their white night, that and not enough room to experience the installations. The crowds and mobs of people make the night an event of endurance. Too many of the installations were of videos; videos of water drops, videos of making plaster casts of hands, videos of people's faces, you name it and there was a video for it.
The feeling of "is it art" is not something I usually question during the night - I like to find joy in the work and as a photographer I hope to find something visually interesting. I found less of these installations this year and more installations of ordinary events like looking at a bonfire, sitting around a bonfire and playing video games just to name a few. Next year I imagine they will have see through port a potties and lineups of people will gather round and marvel at the excitement of waste production. However, with the amount of Torontonians getting out for the event and the immense amount of exhibitions, you can't really see it all and most people's experience will be different than that experienced by the next person.  The TTC was having a tough time as a few streetcars lost their power pole connections and stopped in their tracks which caused more traffic mayhem along Queen Street.
The people that you find along the night's journey often provide a lot of fun like Tron and fuzzy bike girl, below.
Some people say that the night is an excuse for an all night drug and alcohol party, which for many was an apt description, but for many people this is a chance to be an active part of the experience, which helps to make the city a better place. But you have to make it worthwhile for people to attend and ignore the lineups and the sometimes questionable art. I think I will have to see some great installations planned for 2011 to get back in the saddle again for next years' event.
What was interesting to watch was the young people joining in the night's mass of humanity with their own version of Nuit Blanche - Les Rues Des Refuses, or the street of rejects. They hope to promote art that does not have the funding or awareness of the Nuit Blanche experience but they are really looking for a good, public rave. They gathered at the ROM and at 10:02pm set off on their DJ driven sound show, stopping in the U of T grounds before heading back out onto the streets of Toronto. The funniest part of the night for me was when someone got in my face and got mad at me for being "corporate media". You can see more of the Renegade Parade and rave on my post here.


Here are some of the other stops along my long night of cruising the Nuit Blanche pieces.
After City Hall our next stop was Yonge Street which was closed to vehicles for the night, the road was full of food vendors, masses of people and the occasional outdoor art installation which included "Auto Lamp" sized just right for your living room end table, heck buy a matched set and maybe even the Volkswagen Bug chandelier. Moving north we land at Yonge-Dundas Square where they had a bonfire.
A street market called "Nuit Market" featuring the Weston Flea Market players was tucked out of site in an alleyway and we had to wait for them to set up. Finally they let us into the alley and we wandered through typical flea market sales booths although I didn't see any bootleg videos.

Nuit Blanche pictures continued.

You can see my photos of last years' 2009 Nuit Blanche event here.