White Night
The longest night of the year is White Night. It lasts from Friday to Sunday. The streets of Bratislava will once again be filled with art, visitors and a unique atmosphere. The largest and most visited contemporary art festival in Slovakia, White Night brings contemporary art forms closer to the general public and at the same time reveals unconventional, unknown and significant places in the city.
White Night awakens the night city with multi-genre experiences, a variety of collaborations and themes. The public space and interesting interiors of Bratislava will be enlivened by a nightly showcase of the diverse work of contemporary artists from 12 countries, including Japan, France, Switzerland and Italy. It will bring interactive installations, immersive environments, monumental objects, laser mappings and playful interventions to the capital during three weekend nights from Friday to Sunday, 4 to 6 October.
With the festival map (to be added to the article later) you will discover diverse visual and sound installations, interactive objects, concerts, film screenings, theatre and dance performances. A rich variety of artistic genres will introduce you to the latest trends in contemporary art and technology.
White Night is a unique multi-genre festival where you experience unexpected transformations of the city during a night walk: a dilapidated hotel comes alive with light architecture, famous squares are occupied by monumental objects, a digital mirror appears in the courtyard and large pairs of exotic animal eyes stare out from the grass on the waterfront.
Audiences have the opportunity to discover interactive installations using the latest technology, but also more traditional genres including painting, sculpture and literature. They can immerse themselves in other people’s dreams, touch a cell, watch an ice wall melt, be absorbed by the poetry of smoke patterns and the emergence of a landscape made of thousands of threads of light.
During three unusual nights, established artists, students, foreign guests, independent culture, other festivals and cultural institutions will present their work. The programme dramaturgically appeals to professionals while offering playful experiences for families. It is not afraid to raise socially pressing issues of ecology, marginalised groups, free culture or the war in Ukraine, while also offering cheerful, abstract, creative interventions in the environment.
This year, in the context of the widespread attack on free, open and diverse culture, we feel all the more responsible to bring a glimmer of hope, cooperation, dialogue, courage, expertise and openness to the streets of our cities, says Zuzana Pacáková, the festival’s director, about the dramaturgy of the current edition.
White Night 2024 will be more open to interdisciplinary cooperation, highlight important themes in the public space, bring art to places where it cannot be accessed, and even more than before, it will try to connect the cultural map across different genres, institutions, initiatives and individuals. It will not forget the youngest audiences, extend the festival route in Bratislava and for the first time connect with sport.
The diverse offer of different artistic genres will guarantee everyone to get to know the latest trends in various artistic disciplines. Alongside art, visitors will discover interesting and unconventional spaces that will exceptionally accommodate contemporary forms of art, such as courtyards, parks, stations, bridges, waterfronts, swimming pools, shopping centers, parking lots, private spaces and various places that are usually inaccessible to people.
White Night Bratislava 2024: 4 – 6 October 2024 from 19.00 to 00.00
Programme and schedule in English
This year the festival has a special atmosphere as it celebrates its round birthday. As part of this anniversary, the organisers have decided to reprise popular works from previous editions, placing them in new parts of the city, outside the traditional festival routes. One of the works will be “The Moon“, which will shine in the outdoor event space of the DoubleTree by Hilton Bratislava hotel from 4 to 6 October. More information
Download the White Night map! (Explanations are in English)
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Admission:
Pass for children from 6 to 11 years old: 5€ / exteriors free
Pass from 12 years old and up: 15€ pre-sale / 20€ on site / exteriors free
Children up to 5 years old (inclusive), people with disability and disability-S cards (also with an accompanying person) and people over 62 years old: free admission
Some artistic specials require a separate admission fee.
International guests
In addition to a diverse domestic scene, this year the festival enjoys the participation of renowned artists from Japan, France, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic and Armenia, who will present work at the intersection between art, scientific research, new technologies, interactivity and an often poetic, minimalist aesthetic.
French artist Guillaume Cousin brings to White Night a multimedia installation, an aerial smoke object that travels through time and space, emerging, growing, slowing down, disintegrating – and immersing the audience with its delicate, organic character. In doing so, the work rests on the massive algorithmic foundations of an overlooked machine that is an acknowledged part of it.
Also immersive and visually absorbing is the site-specific installation by Japanese artist Yasuhiro Chida, which allows one to follow the gradual emergence of space within space by layering threads, structures and light rays.
The ENTER light installation by Polish creative Ksawera Komputera is a peculiar digital mirror that invites interaction – an oversized digital avatar follows the movements, words and sounds of the person in front of it and reflects them in its own audiovisual language.
The installation Onirica (), which combines not only creative principles with scientific research, but also an intimate, non-transferable dreaming experience with the interventions of artificial intelligence, will also provide an exceptional experience. From a collection of 28,748 dreams dreamt by volunteers in research conducted at two universities around the world, Italian artists from the fuse* studio have created an immersive installation that seeks and highlights the connective tissue between dreams and their dreamers.
Artists, White Night 2024
Umelci, Biela noc 2024: Ašot Haas, AUSGANG studio – Radovan Dranga a Alex Zelina, Boris Vitázek, BN LABEL, CE ZA AR, Cod.Act, Dáša Krištofovičová and Marcela Cmorejová, David Kollar & Quasars Ensemble, Dorota Sadovská, DPOH – Generations, Emil Taschka, Emma Zahradníková and Matej Viskupič, students of FTF VŠMU, Fest Anča, fjúžn festival, fuse*, Guillaume Cousin, Hannah Rose Stewart, inwatewethrust – Zuzana Husárová, Ľubomír Panák, Monika Thüringerová, Addy Waacking, Elena Šoltésová and TJ SLÁVIA STU, Alt 30 collective, Ivo Opl and Suren Manvelyan, Ján Šicko, Jaroslav Varga, Kriss Sagan, Kristián Németh, Ksawery Komputery, Laco Sabo, Lousy Auber, Marek Kvetan, MediaLab* – students of VŠVU, Monika Pascoe Mikyšková, Patrícia Koyšová and Matúš Lelovský, Paulína Ebringerová, Peter Mazalán, Katarína Floreková, Ondrej Kováč, Pavol Truben, Petr Stanický, Radical Empathy, Roman Mackovič, Stroon and Martin Gabčo, Viktória Revická, Juraj Bilény, Michal Zoller, Dominik Dolník, Julia Pabst, Lucia Kupcová, Void Sleepers, Yasuhiro Chida, Zorka Lednárová
