NIGHTSENSE

This text examines ‘NIGHTSENSE’, an exhibition of fifteen projects curated by DisplayCult for Toronto’s 2009 Nuit Blanche. Given the location in the financial district, the curators explored how artworks could intervene into the symbolic and affective value of the locale’s charged sites, shift the bullish business atmosphere, and initiate a critical discussion about economics, citizenship and public space. ‘NIGHTSENSE’ articulated two curatorial concerns: broadening aesthetics to encompass a wider sensory engagement, while configuring context-sensitive installations to respond to the recent economic crisis. Synaesthetic and immersive artworks encouraged critical and ludic participation by diverse audiences in Canada’s financial epicenter, where the conventional sensory economy gave way to an interrogation of the subtle but powerful links between bodies, aesthetics and capital.