Authors@Harbourfront

Once again, this year the International Festival of Authors was hosted just across our street and at seventeen other locations across our province by the Harbourfront Centre and it featured a hundred and ninety authors from around the world and included readings by Scotiabank Giller Prize, Governor General’s Literary Awards and Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize finalists. In its 32^nd year, the IFOA boasted participants like Edem Awumey- Grand Prix Littéraire de L’Afrique Noire winner and a finalist for France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt, Ken Babstock a winner at the 1997 Canadian National Magazine Awards, Peter Behrens- winner of Governor General's Award for Fiction and Amitav Ghosh, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and winner of Arthur C. Clarke Award and Dan David Prize, amongst others.

Hearing the festive trumpets, I also went to visit the authors @ Harbourfront. As an invisible but sonorous voice set the mood for the evening, the audience was informed that each of the four authors will be reading for twenty minutes and following the first two authors, a fifteen minutes recess will be taken. Promptly thereafter, the first author was introduced. He was none other than our very own Linwood Barclay. Formerly a writer of the thrice-weekly humour column in the Toronto Star, he has also authored more than a dozen books. His reading from the prologue of a recently published book - The Accident definitely proved to be a hit with the audience, as it gradually made its way from the comic to the mysterious.

Next on stage was Amitav Ghosh with River of Smoke, the second volume of what will be the Ibis trilogy. He treated his audience to a humorous anecdote (absolutely fictitious off course) of how a man named Behram rose to prominence amongst the English passengers of a ship, when Napoleon, in exile at this time, invited him to his residence. All that can be said about the piece is that it left the audience giggling and curious to learn more.

Following a fifteen minutes break, Nancy Huston read to the audience. Huston’s books have won the Prix Goncourt des Lyceéns, Prix Elle and Governor General’s Literary Award. Her novel The Mark of the Angel won the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle, Canadian Jewish Fiction Book Award and Torgi Award and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Fault Lines won the Prix Femina and was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Orange Prize. Huston presented Infrared, which follows Rena, a photographer who specializes in infrared techniques, who, through a parallel journey, explores her relationships past and present. The bold language, curious portrayal of characters and vividly descriptive passages in the section she read from, won her much appreciation from the audience.

The evening concluded with a reading by Heather Jessup. Currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto and a Creative Writing instructor at Dalhousie University, this is Jessup’s first novel. Set against the backdrop of Cold War-era Toronto, The Lightning Field gave us a slice of an engineer’s life who works in the suburbs of Toronto. Tragic yet hopeful, the novel explores loss and unexpected offerings.

As people migrated to the book signing desks, I took my leave of IFOA 2011, hoping to be back next year, and also hoping to meet a host of other talented authors who I could not this year...

 

Top- Audience, Bottom- Venue (Fleck Theater)

Author Amitav Ghosh at the Signing desk

With Author Amitav Ghosh

Nuit Blanche 2011

            On October 1st, 2011 we celebrated the Nuit Blanche festival in Toronto. This event is held every year, all night long and is absolutely free for all! But what does this festival celebrate? Well, this is an experience of arts of all sort: sound and music, graffiti and sculpture, visual and sensual works of art... you name it and they've got it- and all- ''l'art pour l'art''; meaning, "art for art's sake". This slogan had come into existence in France in the early 19th Century to express a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art has nothing to do with any didactic, moral or utilitarian function. And the festival too was born in France in 1989 and was initially named 'Night of the Arts'. The original plan was to keep every gallery, museum and bookshop open until midnight or later and to transform the entire city into a carnival venue. Gradually, Nuit Blanche or the 'White Night' of Arts came to be celebrated in France, every year from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and today this idea of a night-long festival of the arts has spread around the world, extending its light to our very own city of Toronto.

           On this cold windy night, hundreds of Torontonians were seen walking up and down the streets of the city with maps in Hand, and hands in pockets. Scotiabank, the sponsor of Nuit Blanche, Toronto, had meticulously planned this event, which began at 6.59 p.m. and lasted till sunrise. The map divided the city into zones A, B and C, to aid the convenience of art lovers. Every zone had a few commissioned projects, few open call projects and few independent projects presented to us not only by domestic artists but also from artists abroad. I happened to meet and talk to an artist from Los Angeles, just before he inaugurated his exhibition. This one, called "Memorias" was a commissioned one. So when my fellow stroller commented, "oh, so you must be pretty reputed in your field", he hung his head and blushed! The installation was very straight forward; he had wanted to commemorate Ontario immigrant workers by lighting candles in their memory, on a stretch of sand poured out on Yonge street. By the end of the night, there were enough candles to illuminate the dark road and also the hearts of those who passed and stopped inevitably. This is how it was:

 

The last image is significant because it added to my feeling of nostalgia. Being from Calcutta, India, I could definitely relate to this installation. Any protest, celebration, and both passion and compassion in my home city is often demonstrated by a similar lighting and/or arrangement of candles. And a work of art or not, this exhibit was definitely a work of humane sentiments.

            Another installation which arrested a lot of attention was a performance art by the duo- Tibi Tibi Neuspiel and Geoffrey Pugen. It was called "The Tie- break". The two gentlemen were re-enacting the legendary fourth set tie-break from the 1980 Wimbledon Finals between Bjorn Borg (Neuspiel) and John McEnroe (Pugen), throughout the night, for 25 minutes, after every hour. From hair and make-up, costumes  and shoes to the tennis court and commentator, everything mimicked the original, down to the minutest detail (even the 'course language'). But believe it or not, the most difficult part of the performance, according to the actors who had been practicing the moves for months now, was acquiring the original brand of white tennis balls used at the Wimbledon game, as they have gone out of production decades ago!

Other installations and exhibitions that I saw in the next two hours are pretty much the following:

 

 1. Morse Code                                  2. Soon- Forsyth & Pollard

  

3. Who's Gonna Run This Town- Kate Sansom

4. The design Exchange- Keller & Woodey

                         5. The Vault, Monster Jam- Jacob Gleeson

                           6. INFRA- Tonya Hart

There is however one special installation which I would like to mention before ending this article; it was 'The Free Shop" by Basil Alzeri, on Bay street. As the story runs, Alzeri had lost most of his material possessions to a house fire and later decided to give away whatever was left to him, on the White Night. His 'free shop' was made inside a street car (tram) stoppage and it considered his detachment from material goods. The artist's personal belongings saved from the fire were on display for the public to examine. They chose from it and took away with them, whatever they liked. Here below is the little free shop of artist Basil Alzeri:

   

My tour ended by 9 p.m. And although it was quite early, I decided that I had seen enough for this year. Some art works were "Ahh!!" and others were "blah"; but the experience was worth the walk...