Splendour in the Night

The first annual Splendour In the Night was produced in 2008. Each autumn we set up 6 pop up tents across the DTES and request of community members the honour of taking their portrait. Portrait being widely defined and therefore encouraging our neighbours to choose if not their face, then a favourite tattoo, their hands, an elbow – anything of their choice to represent them in portraiture. We then assemble a montage of the 1000s of portraits and project them at Oppenheimer Park during the longest night of the year – those 18 hours of forlorn darkness which begin around 4pm on December 21^st. Splendour is the DTES Neighbourhood House’s silent homage to the distilled beauty of our neighbours, lighting up the seemingly endless night in the still of the Park. Splendour in the Night has a propensity for fostering spontaneous beauty and fun, two of the DTES NH’s longstanding core values.