What a thrill is is to see our streets start to come alive in preparation of Saturday’s White Night Ballarat!
As a Council we are passionate about the role arts and culture plays in our city. And it is a real privilege to be hosting White Night for a third year in a row.
As many of you know, Ballarat is a proud creative city. We are rich in heritage and culture, strong in artistic endeavour, with an enthusiastic and committed culture-loving community.
White Night gives us a remarkable opportunity to showcase our city’s unique diversity and talent.
This year, we are so pleased to see the program will have such a strong local component, which will only strengthen and build our thriving arts community.
Opportunities for local artists is something we’ve pushed for as part of our Creative City Strategy, and White Night is once again supporting this vision, providing an invaluable platform to showcase our arts scene.
This Saturday evening you will have the opportunity to see the fabulous work of our local artists, including award-winning Wadawurrung Elder Aunty Marlene Gilson who has created an evocative projection featuring the voices of Aboriginal Victorians.
Marlene’s work invites us to learn about one of the oldest continuous cultures on earth, and gives us insight into Aboriginal cultures, histories, connection to place, and aspirations for Treaty in Victoria.
What’s also exciting is the fact this year’s White Night will be bigger and better than ever before. It will have a larger footprint then previous years, providing more opportunities for the city’s traders to benefit from the significant economic impact of the event.
It will also have a more diverse curated offering with 59 unique works. Its size and ambition will no doubt rival some of the great White Night events around the world.
And there’s plenty of new content in this year’s program as well as some highlights from the Melbourne event.
As a city, we are excited about its move to September. This new time slot allows us to celebrate the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring.
We will no doubt see plenty of footy fans continuing the BFL grand final celebrations into the evening alongside tens of thousands of new and returning visitors.
Despite being held in a cooler month, we are expecting tomorrow’s event to draw even bigger crowds then previous years.
Ballarat folk are not afraid of the cold – in fact, we embrace it.
So tomorrow night, we look forward to seeing thousands of people rugged up, prepared for the wintry chill, ready to partake in this spectacular event.
