Department of Cultural Affairs

Nuit Blanche is an all-night arts festival held in cities all over the world, originated in Paris in 2002 and takes place on the first Saturday night of October. The core concepts of the Nuit Blanche are “urban innovation” and “public space design”. Nuit Blanche invites the public to explore new as-pects and depths of the city by making urban spaces and art accessible to the audience. Nuit Blanche possesses three unique characters, “all-night events”, “free for all” and “civic engagement”, providing a chance for citizens to access art and freely travel through urban spaces with various art-works and performances.
In 2016, Taipei joined the global community to host the very first Nuit Blanche of Taiwan around Beimen area. With the slogan of “let’s not sleep tonight”, the festival attracted 200,000 people to walk into the old blocks of Taipei and was marked as one of the city’s most beautiful memories. In 2017, the Nuit Blanche is moving towards the southern edge of the city, Gongguan, connecting three major spaces of National Taiwan University, the Wen-Luo-Ting cluster and Taipei City Hakka Cultural Park, using the independent spirits and multiculturalism thrived in the Gongguan area as the core to depict the city’s unique cultural and urban landscape. Nuit Blanche Taipei calls on citi-zens to experience the “axis and spirit of times” in southern Taipei and to become artists at the spe-cial night.
Nuit Blanche Taipei 2017 stages in Gongguan, and it separates its 2-kilometer route into three major sections -“Electronic Treasure on the Royal Palm Boulevard”, “Independent Treasure on the Streets of Wen-Luo-Ting, and “Cross-cultural Treasure of the Dreamers”, based on the urban and cultural landscape of the exhibition area.
The “Electronic Treasure on the Royal Palm Boulevard” will be held along both sides of the Boule-vard, with interactive installations, art projections, performance art and battle of DVJ. There will also be classical orchestra competing with electronic music on the main stage, gigantic projection mapping show lighting up the University library, and midnight forum taken place under the starry night as if National Taiwan University turns into a nighttime art university.
“Independent Treasure on the Streets of Wen-Luo-Ting” will be scattered in Wenzhou Street, Roo-sevelt Road and Tingzhou Road. Jugglers and DJs will battle together inside and outside of the Taiwan Power Company Building, and people will walk through independent bookshops, under-ground musical stages and cafes hidden in the streets under the lead of art performances. Here, re-bellious spirits and sophisticated aesthetics merge into a unique cultural atmosphere.
At the other end, “Cross-Cultural Treasure of the Dreamers” will span across the Substitute Military Service Center and the Hakka Cultural Park. The Nuit Blanche Village of Literature and Arts will be built in the Service Center, which is strictly guarded on ordinary days; a great variety of local cultures and avant-garde artworks are to be mixed and mingled in the Hakka Park.
During the Nuit Blanche, more than 30 museums and cultural facilities will open till mid-night, in-cluding the National Palace Museum, the Presidential Office Building, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Arts Taipei. On October 7, let us create another memory of Tai-pei and stay up all night for the love of arts. The city belongs to the people; let’s occupy the streets for arts!