Partnerships
Art Night heads north to Dundee for its debut edition outside of the UK capital
Having made its legacy in London, one-night cultural extravaganza Art Night is travelling to Dundee for its 2023 edition – its first full programme to be held outside of London.
As we’re partnering with Art Night to support them on the streets of Scotland (alongside Dundee’s Street Advertising Services), we chatted to Artistic Director Helen Nisbet about the changes this has brought about for the festival, and teamed up with the curatorial team – Elizabeth Ann Day, Becca Clark and Jamie Donald – for a shoot in the city.
Since starting in 2016, Art Night helped to develop arts engagement in the English capital with new commissions and works being shown in unusual, unexpected, and carefully curated locations with major cultural partners. From Westminster, Whitechapel Gallery and Walthamstow to the South Bank and Battersea Power Station, 2021’s mid-pandemic iteration of the festival saw them take first steps outside of the city, to UK-wide locations like Eastbourne, Birmingham, Cardiff, Skye, Derry, ‘and crucially… Dundee’ (including a partnership with BUILDHOLLYWOOD that manifested Guerrilla Girls’ The Male Graze as a national series of billboards).
Now in its sixth year, 2023 will see the festival breaking new ground with its first programme to be held completely outside of London. Travelling to eastern Scotland, Dundee will host Art Night when it occupies the city on the 24th June 2023. With ten commissions by local and internationally celebrated artists occupying both civic and public spaces in the city, the festival will run alongside Inwith – showcasing a cross-section of Dundee’s impressive and varied arts and community programming. Now, Art Night ‘champions the possibilities of decentralisation.’
With this year’s festival including work by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Emma Hart, Inefficient Solutions, our own previous collaborator Nabihah Iqbal, Tai Shani, Saoirse Amira Anis, Richy Carey, Lucy Mckenzie, Heather Phillipson, and Maria Fusco and Margaret Salmon, they will occupy locations like the Arthurstone Community Library, Greenmarket Car Park, V&A Dundee, RRS Discovery, Baxter Park Pavilion and more. With a curatorial effort like this, Art Night enables people to interact, explore, and engage with their city in a way they normally wouldn’t. Buildings take on new purposes, locations earn new utilisations, and the area feels cast anew.
To find out more about the developments for the festival and the promise this brings for its future, we spoke to Artistic Director Helen Nisbet ahead of 2023’s edition.
14.06.23
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