Let there be light. And dark, too.

Dark Side Light  - September 28 at Frame Arts Warehouse – explores the relationship between light and dark.

“Dark Side Light is an attempt to examine and explore two extremes of lightness and darkness,” Ali Tataryn, Frame’s program director and curator of the exhibition, says.

“Can you define one without the other? Can they flow into each other? Moreover, how does dark and light – literally black and white, good and bad – how does that shape or affect our personal psyches or that of the collective?” she poses. “Do we have an immediate negative association towards black or dark? How do we project that onto people, onto races and onto the time of night?”

Dark is part of Nuit Blanche Winnipeg, Saturday’s free, all-night, multi-venue celebration of contemporary art.

Tataryn says the event was created as an open invitation to artists of all mediums to showcase their work within the light/dark theme.

The exhibition features about 10 artists and is an “experimental sound art show with dance, video installation and photography.”

Courtney Starsiak, a contemporary dancer, will be performing an original piece with a friend to the music of Valtari, an album by the Icelandic band Sigur Rós.

“I’m most excited about performing, because I haven’t got to do that in two years because I’ve been teaching,” she says.

“That’s been my focus so to actually be in something I’m pretty excited about that.”

Winnipeg filmmaker and photographer Rhayne Vermette will be contributing two experimental films. Although this isn’t her first Nuit Blanche, she’s still excited.

“I’ve been part of various events over the past several years, but mostly as a DJ, so this is the first year I’ll have some artwork involved in it,” Vermette says.

Tataryn says the Nuit Blanche set-up really fits into what Frame is trying to accomplish.

“[It’s] a free-for-all of art and art for the sake of art” Tataryn says. “I like having performance with my art and a little art with my performance.

“You can expect to use all of your senses [during Dark Side Light]. Just immerse yourself. It’s something like a haunted house, dark but curious and beautiful.

That’s what I’m going for.”

Published in Volume 68, Number 3 of The Uniter (September 18, 2013)