Nuit Blanche YXE

I Built a Nest, Please Stay (2026)

  • Description

    Date/Time: Saturday, September 19th, 7:00 p.m. to midnight

    Event: Nuit Blanche YXE Saskatoon 2026

    Location: Beside the Weewasin Valley Authority building (in the park)

    402 3rd Ave S, Saskatoon, SK


    “I Built a Nest, Please Stay” is a multimedia Installation combining sculpture and hand-drawn digital animation, presented as part of Nuit Blanche YXE 2026, Saskatoon’s lineup of visual, music, and performance artists. 


    The piece explores relationships between animals, nature, dreams, and ecological sustainability. In The Poetics of Space, Bachelard describes nest as sanctuary. Drawing on this connection to environmental impact, viewers are invited to imagine intimate, delicate, structures created for protection. Highlighting the fragile ecological networks surrounding Saskatoon, the artwork features whooping cranes, snow geese, migratory birds, and the Krydor-Redberry Lake region, a UNESCO Biosphere site. The soft sculpture is composed of Tyvek and bamboo and will be fastened among the trees. The animation will be projected on either side of the sculpture to activate its surface.


    I Built a Nest, Please Stay (2026)

    Runtime and format: 10min, hand-drawn digital animation and sculpture installation

  • Team

    Allyson Glenn (director, video editor, animator, sculpture design)


    Assistants

    Nik Chermenskaya (animation, video)

    Jewel Charles (animation, video)

    David Sanscartier (sculpture, video)

    Ozen Turkekul (animation, photo)

    Jocelyn May (animation)

    Anne Pekurovski (animation, sculpture)

    Noah Lukan (animation)

    Iman Kruger (video)


    Other

    Storyblocks & IStock (stock footage)

                                                       

This project is made possible through the Shyluk Nature Health Foundation. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and SK Arts


Golden Calf (2022)

  • Description

    Golden Calf: Sculpture with two-channel video animation projections (hand-drawn, 6 min). Installed behind the Bike Doctor for Nuit Blanche Saskatoon.


    Central to the world’s economy, fossil fuels support most economic activities from transportation, agriculture to industry, and provides electricity and touches most of everyday household items. The multimedia installation titled Golden Calf investigates the complex intersection between society’s deep dependency on fossil fuels and its environmental impacts. Inspired by William Kentridge’s evolving landscape narratives and Krzysztof Wodiczkox’s Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection, this piece combines a sculptural object and a time-based media. While suggesting an analogy between the worship of a deity versus a natural resource, Golden Calf uses allegory and symbolism to narrate a story of this resource. The installation has the capacity to address topics around human-induced climate change and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals no. 13 (Climate action).


    The full installation, composed of a sculpture with two-channel video animation projections (hand-drawn, 6 min) was first installed at Nuit Blanche Saskatoon (September 2022) behind a bike store that included a shipping container and adjoining wall. The sculpture, made from recycled materials included an oil barrel, repurposed and covered in gold leaf. To activate the sculpture, the two animations projected through it. 

  • Team

    Collaborators: Allyson Glenn & David Sanscartier 


    Allyson Glenn (Art Director, Animation, Video Editing) 

    Sandra Marteleur "Lily of the Woods" and "Is" (Music Courteously of Epidemic Sound) David Sanscartier (Animation) Kaleb Whittingstall (Animation) Alexis Fraser (Animation) Laurenne Trottier (Animation) Lucy Zhou (Animation)

Installation View