Let there be light Organizers and artists gear up for Nuit Blanche’s 15th year of art celebration By: AV Kitching Posted: 6:33 PM CDT Thursday, Sep. 25, 2025

Kurt Tittlemier plans to be up early Saturday morning to check on the weather as rain could scupper his smoothly laid-out plans for Nuit Blanche.

From 6 p.m. to 11 p.m Saturday, an estimated 35,000 visitors will explore four art zones in the city centre, viewing more than 100 installations, performance and community events created by individual artists and art collectives.

It’s been a hectic week in the lead-up to the annual contemporary art festival, and Tittlemier, the general manager of Culture Days Manitoba, which produces Nuit Blanche Winnipeg (NBW), has been fielding phone calls, answering emails and troubleshooting countless last-minute issues.

It’s part and parcel of doing the job, and after 11 years with the organization, four as its GM, his passion and dedication have yet to wane. If anything, they’ve grown stronger.

“I still love this community. Watching small and large arts organizations transform over the years is inspiring. I am more confident with every year, but honestly, a bit nervous that everything goes to plan. I know enough now that the night will be a success,” he says.

”The scope of this community grows, it’s an exciting place to be and truthfully, I am honoured to have this role.”

Now all he needs is for the Winnipeg weather to co-operate.

“The weather is always a concern, but we do have a contingency plan. It’s important that Nuit Blanche happens whether it rains or shines.”

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Now in its 15^th year, Nuit Blanche is a free and inclusive celebration of art operated by Culture Days Manitoba staff and the Nuit Blanche Winnipeg artistic advisory committee, composed of artists and art professionals who this year have commissioned eight installations for Tittlemier’s office to produce.

“I myself don’t select any of the art works,” Tittlemier explains. “I essentially work for this committee to co-ordinate, present and produce the works. But it is the committee that makes sure the works we produce are very diverse and that we select artists who are representative of our community.”

Nuit Blanche installations fall into three categories.

In the first tier are the eight Culture Days Manitoba projects funded by the Winnipeg Arts Council, a producing partner and the Winnipeg Foundation. This year, the latter’s support has allowed Tittlemier’s team to invite Polish-based creative technology studio Ksawery Komputery to present the light installation Flux at Old Market Square, in the Exchange District.

Then there are two featured works by established artists Claire Johnston and Justin Bear, who were commissioned to create Winnipeg Arts Council-funded installations.

The council also supports the four successful 2025 open-call submissions on the Illuminate the Night theme with an artist honorarium of $2,500 provided for each work.

Funding for the Old Market Square installation and the two featured works is higher than that of the open call, but Tittlemier says commissioning on different scales ensures visitors are exposed to works from more established practitioners, as well as emerging artists.

“We want to make space for art that’s deeply felt, art that doesn’t have to always be super techy and flashy. A good outcome for us is that there’s contemporary art that is accessible and shows diversity across genres, not just within community and artist representation, but in the breadth of the art on offer,” he explains.

This year, there’s also what Tittlemier refers to as the “wild card,” a jointly funded live recording broadcast with CBC featuring Winnipeg-born hip-hop artist Odario Williams, the DJ behind the national broadcaster’s Afterdark program.

The second tier branches off in two directions; the first branch holds partner installations funded by organizations such as The Forks and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, while the second branch carries sponsorships from local businesses such as Patent 5, Little Brown Jug, Darling Bar and Nonsuch.

“What we offer in the first instance is community arts facilitation. It’s not curation. I get advice from the advisory committee, and I bring them several different artists and let them choose. CMHR has a public programs manager who has commissioned glass artist Warren Carther to create a new piece he will debut tomorrow,” Tittlemier says.

The sponsorship branch of the second tier, dubbed Community Celebrations, allows Tittlemier to not just add more events to NBW’s roster, but also provides an essential service to emerging artists by connecting people who make art with spaces that pay them to show their art.

All four Community Celebrations venues serve alcohol. Asked if that doesn’t go against the event’s mandate to remain accessible to all, Tittlemier explains that Nuit Blanche’s involvement only includes the art and culture.

“What’s happened over the years is that local, independent businesses which need a boost put on their own events and hire artists we recommend.”

NBW ensures they register their event, adhere to the code of conduct and make the event free to the public.

”You can attend even if you’re under 18. You can go in there and see the art. You don’t have to buy a beer,” Tittlemier says.

He has been approached by establishments and individuals who want to partner with NBW on a beer garden, but Tittlemier remains firm on the stance the team and board have taken.

“Look, I could make a killing selling alcohol if I put a beer garden on Old Market Square. I would love to increase our budget, I would love to hire more staff. But I feel that we’ve done a good job sticking to what we do and not diluting our brand.”

The third tier is made up of independent curators, a huge part of the NBW tapestry. These are the self-funded artists and collectives who want to mount installations or put on shows — although not just anyone can claim to be part of the event. Organizers must comply with NBW’s criteria.

“It has to be arts and culture-related, it has to be a free event for the public on Sept. 27, it has to at some point run between 6 p.m to 11 p.m., it has to fall within the boundary zone and, most importantly, it has to be registered and reviewed on the Culture Day Manitoba website and accept our code of conduct,” Tittlemier says.

“If it doesn’t go through that process, even if it’s in the zones, even if it’s free, even if it’s a great event, we don’t consider it Nuit Blanche. We can’t have rogue events. But not meeting with our criteria, not registering and signing our code of conduct, it’s a concern of ours.”

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Rogue events aside, Tittlemier has other concerns on his mind — namely, cars, or to be more precise, the lack of road closures on a night where 35,000 people will be mostly moving on foot around NBW’s four zones — the Exchange District, downtown (between Main Street and Memorial Boulevard), The Forks and St. Boniface.

It’s one of the more frustrating aspects of rolling out an event designed to be walkable in a city not particularly known for being pedestrian-friendly.

While Tittlemier can’t close down Main Street, he’s doing what he can. He’s paid a rather hefty sum to secure a special events permit through the City of Winnipeg and will be able to close four or five streets in the Exchange so people can move freely without having to worry about traffic.

Nuit Blanche 2025 map

 

Another priority is ensuring everyone who attends Saturday feels safe when they’re walking — both on the road and around each other.

The organization has a safer-spaces policy on its website that tells people what to expect and how they are expected to behave, along with information on where to find trained Safer Spaces Captains in their blue vests, who are trained to record complaints and, if need be, de-escalate matters.

“We want it to be an impactful event,” Tittlemier says. “In Winnipeg, in my opinion, we have such a bad opinion of the downtown. When we do Nuit Blanche, it’s free, it’s accessible, it’s a pedestrian-friendly touring of your downtown, and people have come down and viewed the city in a positive way.”

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

 

Claire Johnston
How do you use your medicine?

• Stephen Juba Park, Waterfront Drive
• 6 p.m. to 11:55 p.m.

Johnston’s giant glow-in-the-dark Métis floral beaded tobacco bag, also known as a medicine bag or medicine pouch, is 2.1 metres tall and 1.8 metres wide. Made from more than a thousand two-centimetre wooden beads, the piece honours the connection between the corporeal and spiritual world.

With community members as collaborators, Johnston will facilitate active participation in stringing glow-in-the-dark beads onto the tobacco bag with the public. As the evening continues, the piece will slowly gain hundreds of beads.

“We live in a world that doesn’t promote us thinking about who made the things that we have, or how we are here in this moment right now,” the artist says.

“What are we doing right now with our physical body? How does the physical body feel right now? We’re quite disconnected from feeling and understanding the things around us. Something like bead work, where it’s so slow and each decision has to be felt and each decision has to be made slowly, it’s a very intentional, very involved process.”

 

Warren Carther
Cyrus enters Babylon

• Outdoor installation at the group entrance of Canadian Museum for Human Rights, 85 Israel Asper Way
• From 8 p.m. to midnight

Carther, known for his explorations of light and glass, is debuting his first non-glass installation — a large cube on a 60-centimetre plinth upon which videos of models, holding masks from the figures in Picasso’s Guernica, will be projected via two projectors.

Carther’s intention was to capture aspects of humanity with the work, confronting the human rights abuses taking place across the world while still celebrating humanity’s triumphs. The title references Cyrus, the Persian king who conquered Babylon and was believed to be one of the first people to make laws about human rights.

“My experience is a lot with site-specific work, and the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is a very important location right now because human rights is such a mess worldwide. My real medium is light, because without light, glass doesn’t really do anything,” Carther says.

“In this particular particular piece, I wanted to work on a large scale on a temporary basis, so I found other materials that have the same translucency as glass has and have the capability to hold an image that’s projected on them with enough of the light getting through the layers so you see an interesting, simultaneous look from different angles of the same image.”