Kyuubi Culture + Marie Webster: Supernatural • Nocturnal Parables
Nuit Blanche • Saskatoon • September 2021
Source: Nuit blanche YXE official Website.
Project Concept
Supernatural • Nocturnal Parables strive to transform the mundane space we occupy at the night of Nuit Blanche into a preternatural realm of magic and phantom by employing light, sound, and performance art.
From the parables of the sun-stealing raven told by Haida elders among crackling fires to accounts of man-devouring Yōkais haunting people’s nightmares since the Heian Era, the terrifying yet equally fascinating stories of the supernatural have been told and enjoyed by folks for eons. These imagination-fused tales are humanity’s romantic attempts to comprehend phenomenons too difficult to decipher through the sheer means of scientific explanation. We now live in a fast-paced world dominated by technology and rapid information sharing, fantasy and emotions were overshadowed by logic and cold facts. People’s reverence for nature gradually dissipates, along with the suspense, thrill, and excitement inspired by those ancient supernatural accounts. Our in-progress projects, which eventually lead to the exhibition: Supernatural • Nocturnal Parables. This performative piece about entities and supernatural forces beyond human comprehension serves as metaphors, which provide an opportunity for communities to reconnect emotionally amidst the pandemic lockdown.
About The Artists
Xiao Han is an artist and curator. With photography, Han's artwork focuses on politics, gender issues, and crossing cultures. Through stage design and performance, Han creates and researches folk storytelling in a multicultural environment in Canada.
Photo Credit: Barbara Reimer
Marie Webster is a multidisciplinary artist and witch whose work and practice focus on the feminine form and sacred sexuality. Traveling and showing extensively throughout her career, Marie received her BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, Alberta, and her MFA from the University of Saskatchewan, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Photo Credit: Barbara Reimer
Qiming Sun is a Saskatoon-based Asian-Canadian artist and a practicing witch. He received his MFA and High Honours BFA from the University of Saskatchewan. He specializes in oil paintings and sculptural works inspired by nature, the human body and condition, mythology, life and death, symbolism, magick, and shamanic spirituality.
Photo Credit: Barbara Reimer
Nuit Blanche Introduction
Nuit Blanche is an annual all-night art festival that revolves around the two core concepts of “urban innovation” and “public space design”, was established to close the gap between artists and the general public. In 1989, the largest Finnish art festival Helsinki Festival established its Night of the Arts, “when every gallery, museum and bookshop is open until midnight or later and the whole city becomes one giant performance and carnival venue”.
A year later, the mayor of Nantes, Jean-Marc Ayrault's program included renovating the central city and establishing a “contemporary patrimony”, which led arts programmer Jean Blaise to create a late-night cultural festival, “Les Allumées”(Things Alight). His concept was to have an arts festival in Nantes, from 6 pm to 6 am, over six years with artists from six cities.
After this series of festivals, the late-night cultural festival now renamed Nuit Blanche quickly spread in more than 120 cities across Europe. Later on, it came to North America. In 2004 Montreal launched the first Canadian Nuit Blanche, the cultural phenomenon was then immediately spread to Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, Halifax, and Saskatoon in the following years.
