White Night

Overview

Get ready for a night of festivities, art adventures and creative madness, White Night is back. The art event of the year, White Night is one like no other. From 6pm till midnight galleries, museums and art spaces all over the city are opening their doors so the people of Auckland can come out and play.

From north to south and east to west, nearly 60 art spaces will be flaunting local talent and offering a range of creative activities in a line-up that is so choc-a-bloc some serious hustle will be needed to see even a quarter of what's on offer. Luckily, to make life easier free hop-on-hop-off buses will be running between venues for the duration of the evening. Though most  are concentrated in the central city area, there's also a western circuit and buses heading further afield, to the Pah Homestead, Mangere Arts Centre, Te Tuhi and Uxbridge.

Spread around the venues, you'll find luminous gems from the Best of Art in the Dark plus just about every kind of art you could ever imagine: performance, digital and video art, painting, sculpture, photography, jewellery, interactive art and installations. Not to mention artist talks, demonstrations and making opportunities. I'd be tempted to start local and see what treasures are hidden in my own neighbourhood. Then I'd jump on a bus to my farthest destination and work my way back.

So, what's on offer? Well, if you feel like getting your chat on, head to Warwick Henderson Gallery for a discussion on what art actually is, or visit five Auckland artists at Chan Andreassend. Uxbridge has a great line-up of activities including pottery and a night photography workshop ($20).

Learn about screen printing in a demonstration by Shane Hansen at Parnell Gallery and just further down the road you can make your own 3D artwork to add to the sculpture garden. When your feet start to ache, take a load off in one of the Shelter spaces designed for weary art travellers. From there it would be easy to stop in at the Remuera Library to meet Jeff Thompson or the Village Green to make an edible sculpture. A family-friendly event, White Night also has plenty of activities to keep the littlies busy.

So now all you need now is a plan. What are you going to choose?