A recent editorial in the Globe & Mail comments on how art should function: "art is by its nature subversive, challenging, provoking, aggravating, questioning." This may be stating the obvious but claiming a definition as common knowledge is another thing. It suggests there is consensus on what constitutes important art, that it is first and foremost transgressive and contentious. The idea of 'real art' as transgressive should be a foreshadowing of what to expect from Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2008. I would further complicate matters by saying all art is abstract, yet all art is also concrete, subsuming the contradiction in terms especially when performative art is presented in the concrete jungle of Toronto's business district.

In Zone B, I propose a series of performative art events and installations in spaces that will skewer audience expectations by blurring the lines between artist/performer and audience member. Many of the artists in Zone B produce works that demand a close proximity of artwork to the viewer. An unusual intimacy with the audience is built in a variety of situations.

Zone B integrates a range of artists, cultural producers, actors, ideas, platforms and media to both complicate and facilitate a range of art forms, all, to varying degrees, subversive, challenging and aggravating to audiences.

— Wayne Baerwaldt