Free, all-night art event returns to Toronto

Toronto’s free, all-night art event returns next month.

Nuit Blanche is back for its 19th edition on Saturday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. through Sunday, Oct. 5 at 7 a.m.  

This year’s theme, Translating the City, invites audiences to explore the ways art interprets and transforms urban life, bridging language, culture, identity and place, according to a press release from the City of Toronto. 

“Translating the City reflects Toronto’s multilingual character where more than 200 languages are spoken, and reimagines how we communicate and connect through spoken, written, visual, gestural, sonic and emotional forms,” the release states. 

Nuit Blanche takes place across three areas in the city—the downtown core, North York and south Etobicoke. 

In the downtown core (Dundas Street West around Chinatown), Poetic Justice, curated by Charlene K. Lau, explores Toronto’s multilayered histories as Indigenous homelands and as a city of global arrival and departure to consider concepts of land, treaties, justice and reform. 

In North York, Collective Composition, curated by Laura Nanni, who concludes her two-year term as artistic director with this year’s edition of Nuit Blanche, invites audiences to actively participate in immersive works that reveal the city as a living fabric woven through shared care, creativity and responsibility. 

The exhibits are located in the Mel Lastman Square area, north of Yonge Street and Sheppard Avenue.

In Etobicoke, From here, there, everywhere, curated by Renata Azevedo Moreira and supported by exhibition sponsor Humber Polytechnic, reflects on the many meanings of home in a big city shaped by migration, hope, connection and belonging. 

The exhibits are on Humber’s Lake Shore campus grounds, near Lake Shore Boulevard and Kipling Avenue.

Each exhibition transforms civic spaces and unexpected places into sites of connection where artworks explore different languages in spoken, written and signed forms to convey identity, memory and community.

Alongside these exhibitions, programming presented by major institutions and self-produced independent projects by Toronto-based artists will animate spaces across the city.  

Notable highlights for 2025:

• The Eye of Wisdom by Ellen Pau: A large-scale projection incorporates Hong Kong Sign Language, created as a love letter to Toronto. 
• Undersight by Cassils: A list of banned words is sent into the night sky using Morse code, reclaiming censored language as a public and political statement. 
• Lamination 1.0 by Studio Rat: A suspended quilt-like canopy of reclaimed plastic co-created with community members in North York, transforms waste into a vibrant public artwork. 
• A Place I Call Home by Faisal Anwar: An interactive installation that explores what “home” means in an era of migration, instability and change. 

“Plastiscapes” 2014 by Studio Rat. Photo by Michael Patton.

Leading up to the event, there is a free series of talks, tours and workshops from Sept. 13 to Oct. 7. 

For more information about Nuit Blanche, a complete list of art projects and how to sign up for the talks, tours and workshops can be found on the city’s Nuit Blanche website here.