Nice Bumping Into You was commissioned by Diaspora Dialogues for Nuit Blanche, Gardiner Museum, Toronto, 2010 in collaboration with the Humber School of Creative and Performing Arts. Nice Bumping Into You was conceived by Heather Hermant, Diaspora Dialogue’s 2010 Nuit Blanche poet, and Melina Young, glass artist. An interactive performance installation, Nice Bumping Into You is comprised of over one hundred exquisite fused glass “post-it notes” made by Melina that together comprise a single organic image. The “post-it notes” are presented on a lightboard table and can be drawn or written on, and/or erased and moved around by viewer-participants. The lightboard is rigged with spy cameras that project the table’s activities site-specifically, and the piece features soundscapes recording the process of glass-making and periodic live spoken word performance by Heather Hermant and willing audience participants. A manuscript of poems by Heather Hermant entitled “poems for glass,” written on the installation prior to its public unveiling, were published by CUE Books, Vancouver in 2015. Also see O W N by Heather Hermant, angela rawlings and Chris Turnbull.

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2010 – Future City ‘Nice Bumping Into You’ from Diaspora Dialogues on Vimeo.