Nuit Blanche 2026 Activations

Nuit Blanche London will activate the city as a living, breathing site of artistic exploration. Once again, Dundas Street will become a canvas, inviting artists, audiences, and communities to experience the urban landscape through large-scale, temporary installations and interventions in new and unexpected ways. This free event is organized by the London Society of Architects (LSA) in partnership with the City of London, with support from the local arts community.

Activations at TAP Centre for Creativity

Main Gallery & Lower Gallery - Upstairs Downstairs: Resident Artist Exhibition 6PM-11PM

On display in the Main Gallery is our annual resident artist exhibition “Upstairs Downstairs”, join us for a pre-Nuit Blanche reception at 6PM. The Lower Gallery features “Underpinning”, a selection of work by local artists to celebrate 25 years of creativity in our building.

Bruce B. Johnson Theatre - Sylvia Matas, There Was A City - 7PM - 11PM

Sylvia Matas is an artist working with images and language resulting primarily in drawings, artist's books, videos, and poetry. Exhibition venues include the at Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Gallery 44, YYZ Artists’ Outlet, Mercer Union (Toronto), The Maclaren Art Centre (Barrie, ON), The Winnipeg Art Gallery, Plug In ICA, School of Art Gallery (Winnipeg), Truck Contemporary Art (Calgary), and the Art Gallery of Regina.

"There Was a City" was created from satellite photographs taken from Google Earth. I looked for images that felt ambiguous- sites where it seemed uncertain if what I was looking at was in a state of construction or decline. I was thinking about the temporary nature of human built environments, relative to non-human timescales. The subtitles describe an amorphous group of people and how they occupy these built spaces that are transforming in time.

LAB 203 - Garrett Gilbart with David King, Terra Precarium - 7PM - 11PM

Garrett Gilbart is a professional sculptor from Douro, east of Peterborough Ontario initially studying welding and fabrication at Sir Sanford Fleming College, before receiving their BFA from NSCAD Univeristy in Halifax, and briefly studied abroad at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Garrett describes themself as “a carver of unnatural materials, instead of wood and stone, I carve discarded tools, car parts and other salvaged steel objects collected from the forests and scrapyards of rural Ontario”. Each piece is hand carved with a handheld plasma cutter, a welding torch used for melting and cutting steel. Through the imaginative use of a precision fabrication tool the artist unlocks a dimension of creativity; exploring the faded aura of utility and labour these tactile objects exude.

David King is a journalist, writer, and graphic designer based in Peterborough, Ontario.  Currently Editor-in-Chief of Arthur, Trent University's independent student press, David also has bylines in Peterborough Currents and produced news content for broadcast on Trent Radio. David’s passion for broadcast arts translates into various sound collage and ambient musical projects.  

2nd and 3rd Floor Studios - Open Studios 7PM-11PM

TAP’s Resident Artists are opening their studio doors and inviting the public in to see their creative space, talk about their process, and get inspired. Prior to Open Studios, the Resident Artists will be in the Main Gallery for the Opening Reception of the exhibition of their work in Upstairs Downstairs, 6PM-7PM.

Good Foundation Studio North, Lower

Blackout Poetry 7PM-11PM

Create with us at our Blackout Poetry community activity. Blackout poetry is a form of "found" poetry where an artist selects words from an existing text, such as a book or newspaper, and then blackens out the remaining text to reveal a new poem formed by the selected words. This visual and literary art form involves manipulating existing writing to create something entirely new, with the resulting poem often reflecting a new mood or meaning. Final poetry pieces will be displayed on the walls of the studio to read and appreciate. Poets are encouraged to read their poems aloud in our poet spotlight.

Good Foundation Studio South, Lower 

Drawing the Life Model 7PM-11PM

This is an opportunity to join our session artists and try your hand at life drawing. Life drawing is the art of observing and sketching a live human model to study anatomy, proportion, and form. Our clothed life models will each pose for a 30 minute sitting. You can watch from the sidelines or grab a seat to try your hand at capturing the model’s  likeness. Drawing boards, easels, donkeys, and drawing materials will be provided to anyone who wants to participate. Life Drawing is offered at TAP weekly on Monday nights and Tuesday afternoons, and once a month on Saturday mornings.

PLEASE NOTE: the 2nd, 3rd, and Lower Floors are only accessible by stairs. The main gallery and theatre are fully accessible.