In 2023, internationally renowned contemporary art festival Art Night will deliver its first full iteration in a city outside London – Dundee.
On June 24th 2023, 7pm – late, Art Night will present ten major new commissions in civic spaces across the city by internationally significant and emerging artists. Today, the artists and commissioned projects are revealed for the first time along with a range of community projects and partnerships which coincide, highlighting a cross-section of Dundee’s expansive art and communities programming. Iconic and unique spaces across Dundee will be used for this wide range of events, from Dundee Contemporary Arts, V&A Dundee, to historic ships the RRS Discovery and the HMS Unicorn, The Little Theatre, Arthurstone Library, Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD) at the University of Dundee, Baxter Park and Pavillion, and the Keiller Centre as well as outdoors in the city’s streets.
We are overjoyed to share the news of these 10 incredible artist commissions for Art Night Dundee, alongside a beautiful collaboration with artist communities in the city. Art Night Dundee is about the joy and tenderness of being together socially after a long time apart. It is about exchanging ideas, making space to remember, collaboration and community organising. Imagine the city at night, getting ready for a party, telling tales with people you love, hearing a perfect song, eating pies at 4am, meeting friends for a gorgeous walk the next day. I can’t wait to see you here in June.
Helen Nisbet, Artistic Director, Art Night
Alongside the commissions is Inwith, a series of projects highlighting a cross-section of Dundee’s expansive art and communities programming. This comprises 12 projects with partners including V&A Dundee’s Young People’s Collective, Open/Close Dundee in collaboration with EH9 Espresso, Wooosh Gallery, Dundee Community Gardens Network/Grow Dundee, Dundee Heritage Trust’s Creative Communities Network, Dundee Women’s Aid, Hot Chocolate Trust, The Binnn and Volk Gallery with more to be announced.
The ten Art Night commissions include:
At the Little Theatre, Turner Prize winning artist Tai Shani will present My Bodily Remains, Your Bodily Remains, And All The Bodily Remains That Ever Were, And Ever Will Be – a fantastical series of filmic tableaux, adapted from the chamber play presented by Art Night at Fabric, London in 2022. The film will feature an original score composed by Maxwell Sterling and Richard Fearless (Death in Vegas) alongside digital animations by Adam Sinclair.
Nabihah Iqbal will undertake a musical take-over of the Discovery, featuring performances by the artist and invited collaborators. Iqbal’s new album, DREAMER, will be out April 28 via Ninja Tune. She is also the Guest Director of Brighton Festival 2023, taking place across Brighton (6-28 May). At HMS Unicorn in Dundee.
Emma Hart will present a euphoric situation at a special venue in Dundee to be disclosed near to Art Night, nodding to past and present rave and dance-music cultures of Dundee and Angus. A co-commission with Hospitalfield.
Dundee-based artist Saoirse Amira Anis will present a performance as an extension of her solo presentation at Dundee Contemporary Arts, symphony for a fraying body, releasing the work from the DCA’s galleries to seek the waters of the nearby river Tay. The work will also take place at HMS Discovery.
Dundee-based artist Inefficient Solutions will present The Hi-Visit at GENERATORProjects – a participatory opportunity that promises to raise each visitor’s personal profile and expand their portfolio of public engagement.
In Arthurstone Library and the Keiller Centre, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley will present I KNEW YOUR VOICE BEFORE YOU SPOKE, a new generative game which invites visitors to offer sounds and music into the virtual world, altering the playable events as they unfold and ever reacting to audience contributions. The work is a co-commission with NEoN Digital Arts and the Serpentine.
Lucy McKenzie will present Náhrdelník (Necklace) at V&A Dundee -a film which consists of found footage culled from YouTube, of the 1992 Czech television drama of the same name. Depicting interlocking lives of characters in late 19th and early 20th century Prague, McKenzie’s edit focuses on the modernist architecture and interior details of the show’s set.
Co-commissioned by Art Night and the Art Fund as part of their Wild Escape programme, Heather Phillipson will present Dream Land (working title), a multi-part project that remixes and revoices archival BBC wildlife footage alongside her own sounds and images. Presented at Cooper Gallery the film presents earthly life as a dream, in which earth’s creatures reappear as interlocutors, harbingers and guides. Art Night will also gift the film to McManus after the events in June. The project will culminate in a live performance at Cooper Gallery and co-commissioned with Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, during Art Night, tuning in to phenomena unavailable to human senses, conjuring broadcasts from other dimensions. Co-commissioned with Cooper Gallery and supported by the DJCAD Centenary Trust.
Richy Carey will present {stereo – type – music} a performance, installation and publication which emerges from his work with choirs, community groups and other collaborators from across Dundee at Baxter Park Pavilion. The work considers how publishing practices can shape the ways we listen to each other, and the kinds of music that can be created from collectively composed scores. A co-commission with The Tetley, Leeds. The resulting audio work will be presented in an exhibition at The Tetley, Leeds (15 July – 22 October 2023).
At Dundee Rep, Maria Fusco and Margaret Salmon present History of the Present, an experimental opera film which foregrounds Belfast working-class women’s voices to ask: who has the right to speak and in what way? Written by Maria Fusco and co-directed with Margaret Salmon, the film features sonic contributions by composer Annea Lockwood and opera singer Héloïse Werner. The work is programmed and made on the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. This work will tour Edinburgh Art Festival.
A family programme and further community events will also be announced in May.
The free festival will be brought to Dundee in partnership with Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA). Art Night is also collaborating with V&A Dundee; Creative Dundee; NEoN Digital Arts; Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD) at the University of Dundee; Leisure and Culture Dundee, GENERATORprojects; Dundee City Council and Hospitalfield, Arbroath. Art Night Dundee is supported by Creative Scotland and EventScotland’s National Events Programme. National partners include The Art Fund; The Tetley, Leeds; Creative Kernow; Museum of London; the Serpentine.
Funders and supporters include Henry Moore Foundation, Elephant Trust, Northwood Trust, Simmons & Simmons
Art Night Dundee’s particular focus on ambitious new commissions and community partnerships will allow people to explore their relationship to the city in new ways, sharing the joy of gathering in new spaces and creating memorable experiences together.
Kirsteen Macdonald, Visual Arts Officer at Creative Scotland
Art Night, DUNDEE 24th June artnight.org.uk
