The 30th Anniversary Commission for Harbourfront Centre in Toronto 2006, titled FIFTEEN RESTLESS NIGHTS is based upon the distances between major cities in Canada. The result is a contemporary art installation collaboration of image + text + spoken word.
“... MOTEL ROOMS AND STORIES... GIVE INSIGHT INTO CANADIAN IDENTITY”
– Stephanie Rogerson / from NOW MAGAZINE, Toronto Sept. 21, 2006
The theme isn’t new, but the work, using sound, text and image, is unique. Fifteen massive digital photographs of rumpled motel-room beds are accompanied by stories and original music.
Artist Derek Michael Besant has led an amazing collaboration with a diverse, mostly Alberta-based team that includes composer Paul Connolly, the Bent Spoon Ensemble jazz trio, Governor General’s Award-winning writer Diane Schoemperlen and various readers in French and English (Yves Trépanier, Jane E. Nokes, Randy Otto, Sophie McGoey, K. Gwen Frank).
Over the course of a year, Besant drove across Canada, spending every night in a different motel. Every morning he photographed the unmade beds in adjacent rooms, recording what Besant calls “metaphoric landscapes.” The digital photos show rumpled sheets and pillows, but they represent the “distances of intimacy” between us.
The soundtrack is crafted from readings of Schoemperlen’s haunting, heartbreaking stories. French and English are intermingled in tales of isolation, hope and longing, creating a truly bilingual experience. Connolly and the Bent Spoon Ensemble match these stories with a magical score that leads us through the artistic equivalent of a journey on the Trans-Canada Highway.
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Corporate partners in Besant’s FIFTEEN RESTLESS NIGHTS project:
The Pattison Outdoor Group and The Scotiabank Group
a full postcardbook catalogue with soundtrack cd is available
As extensions of the Harbourfront exhibition installation; 48 images with text fragments were also installed as 4’ x 6’ rear-lit images in the heart of downtown Toronto, plus 3 large images 20’ x 15’ were installed at the outdoor hub sites in the city for the NUIT BLANCHE ARTS FESTIVAL, opened by the Mayor of Paris, France Sept. 30, 2006.
Toronto Star critic Peter Goddard, likens the 15 Restless Nights concept to an opera.
Work from this series is exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo for the International Section of The Media-Arts Festival in Japan 2007.
Nuit Blanche / 15 Restless Nights
07.Nuit Blanche Toronto
08.Nuit Blanche Toronto
09.Nuit Blanche Toronto
Bed #14
Bed #19
Bed #24
Bed #23
Bed #25
Bed #3
Bed #26
Bed #20
Bed #4
Bed #11
Bed #13
Bed #16
Speeches & Articles 2006
Toronto Star review 2006
NOW / review 2006
