Culture Days packs 345 events into 3 days in Manitoba

Six months of effort will culminate in more than 345 arts events this weekend in Manitoba, as Culture Days heads into its sixth year in the province.

What organizers call a "tease" of the province's expansive arts scene starts Friday in more than 30 communities, with events ranging from nine-hour parties at art galleries to late night Queen sing-a-longs at tiny theatres.

• Top 10 Nuit Blanche events in Winnipeg this weekend

"It's kind of nutty," said Molly Karp with Culture Days Manitoba, an organization that consists of about three staff who for six months out of the year to make it all happen. But, she cautions, "The actual real, hard work comes from the artists and venues and community organizers who are running these events."

The sprawling festival, which attracts about 50,000 per year, has taken on a reputation for densely packing as much free programming as possible into 72 hours.

Each event comes from the collective efforts of artists, venues and organizers donating their time and talent to draw as many people as possible to the scene.

Right in the middle of each year's celebration is Nuit Blanche, "a sleepless night" that celebrates contemporary art across Canada.

Last year alone, it brought more than 15,000 people to Winnipeg's downtown.

New this year is a corridor called the ARTery that runs down Graham Avenue from Vaughan Street to Fort Street with interactive light installations, mobile art galleries and performances from the RWB.

The idea is to connect the Exchange District to the WAG, where the biggest party of the night is held.

"Nuit Blanche is just such a great platform to be able to capitalize on the large groups of people that are out with the mindset that they want to see art, and they want to party and see the arts and culture sector behind the scenes," said Andrew Eastman, co-founder of Synonym Art Consultation, a local arts initiative focused on putting contemporary art in the public sphere. "I want that to eventually happen all the time. I want people to always think, 'What's going on? How can we be involved? What can we go look at? What art can we support?'"

Wall to Wall plans big party for second year

For the past three years, Eastman and co-founder Chloe Chafe have planned events for Nuit Blanche.

"We get in new audiences, we often meet new artists … it really broadens our horizons and that's what want. We don't want it to be at all exclusive," he said. "It's always just a great big fun party and it's just a great way to end with a bang."

Last year, the duo created Wall to Wall, a festival of public art that saw multiple murals by local artists go up, including one in run-down parking lot off Maryland Street and Westminster Avenue.

To celebrate, they hosted a party with music, art installations, projections and brought in about 1,000 cyclists preparing to go on a bike tour of Nuit Blanche events.

This year, they've commissioned 12 local artists Saturday night to create a mural on the front of C Space gallery on Ross Avenue.

"This [event] for Nuit Blanche, is definitely going to be the most accessible for everyone because people already have the mindset that they're going to come down into the Exchange and wander around to different things and different galleries," said Eastman.

The results stick around longer than one night – most of them until bad weather or unfortunate circumstance interfere. The Maryland Street mural is in mint condition a full year later.

"They're, in theory, permanent. Street art is always sort of ephemeral. It can get painted over. It can get damaged," he said. "This building actually that we're painting on, there's the potential that it might be getting demolished in the next few years, so there's always the chance that street art won't last forever."

Both Eastman and Karp said despite the tight timeframe – due mainly to the logistical nightmare of organizing and mobilizing hundreds of artists – the weekend creates ripple effects for the community in the longrun.

"Our incentive is that if people are able to come out this weekend for free, maybe they'll be interested in going to the WAG for example for the other events they're doing or going to the RWB for other events they're doing, or going to some of the smaller galleries," said Karp. "It's kind of just that little bit of a tease into the rest of the season."

Synonym is making those inroads all year long, bringing work by local artists into restaurants, hair salons and public spaces as often as they can.

"The natural progression was to bring contemporary art into the streets so people [see it] when they walk to work, when they drive to work, when they're out for drinks," said Eastman. "Our mandate at Synonym has always been to really democratize art and bring contemporary art out of the galleries and into the public a little bit more." 

For a list of the top 10 Nuit Blanche events in Winnipeg, click here.