white night 2016.

This past weekend was the fourth annual White Night festival! Inspired by Nuit Blanche in Paris (I actually got to interview one of the curators of both festivals during my internship last August), the one-night festival takes place on the closed-off streets of the Melbourne CBD from 7pm-7am. The event is dedicated to artwork, performance, exhibits, food stalls, and of course - intricate light-themed displays.

Ben and I have enjoyed this festival since 2014 (our first year was way too chaotic during prime time, so we went home and came back at 4 in the morning; last year was a bit easier to navigate from the beginning), and it's always been an end-of-summer highlight for us.

Things were a little different this year due to our little 3.5 month-old. We didn't want to stay out too late (she's going through a sleep regression, which makes us wary of messing with her bedtime too much...) so we weren't able to see everything in its illuminated evening glory. But we enjoyed walking along the closed-off roads during twilight, catching little glimpses of art and music for a few hours.

We passed by a flute beatboxer in a busking zone, saw an exhibit about German 1980's subculture at the RMIT gallery, heard a few songs from the band Thelma Plum, and wandered around some of the projections at the State Library. We walked down to the Victoria Gardens to see some sculptures and took selfies by the giant golden monkey at Town Hall.

Town Hall monkey!

watching the flute beatboxer

1980's subculture exhibit

State Library projections

The reviews of this year's event weren't entirely favourable, and we definitely noticed the lack of overall displays and fluidity between exhibits. But we still enjoyed the experience and the fact that Melbourne continues to put on such cool festivals and events. And of course, we're so glad that we can still have adventures around the city with Arden.

Also, in case you couldn't tell, I've decided that I need to take more videos during our time in Melbourne, because it's such a cool place. I'm really going to miss this city someday...

 

CK