Claire Fontaine’s first Canadian solo show in Vancouver, Halifax’s Nocturne and a new outing by the Fastwürms are among our editor’s event picks this week. For full listings of exhibitions, openings and other art events happening across Canada, please visit canadianart.ca/calendar.

October 11 at 8 p.m.: Opening for Claire Fontaine at the Audain Gallery, 145 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
This first solo exhibition in Canada for Paris-based “collective artist” Claire Fontaine features sculpture, writing, video and painting that examines the psychological and political consequences of the Arab Spring on Western perceptions of reality. (A series of digital paintings, Studies for Tactical Entry, transcribe the “cones of action” of various firearms.) An artist talk also takes place at 6 p.m., and Claire Fontaine will also work with local MFA students during an extended stay as the Audain artist in residence for fall 2012.

October 12 at 7 p.m.: Openings for John Scott, Kika Thorne and Robert Houle opening at the Art Gallery of Windsor, 401 Riverside Drive West, Windsor
Toronto-based artist Kika Thorne gets her first major public-gallery solo show this week at the AGW with “The Wildcraft.” Thorne’s past work has often had an activist bent, and recently she has created ink from plants such as stinging nettle and calendula to use in silkscreen prints. Windsor-born artist John Scott looks at phenomena both local and global in “Mean Machines,” which includes some of his best-known works to date. Robert Houle’s “Paris/Ojibwa,” currently touring after an initial run at the Art Gallery of Peterborough, reimagines an 1845 Parisian salon in which two different cultures make contact.

October 12 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.: Openings for Fastwürms and Sandy Plotnikoff at Paul Petro Contemporary Art, 980 Queen Street West, Toronto
An exhibition by Fastwürms—the Ontario duo inspired in equal parts by Wiccan philosophy, hard-rock culture and their own farm animals—is always worth a look. This new exhibition “Cannibal Nympho Witch” is based on an unpublished sci-fi novel of the same name about a society of transgenetic witches living after a 21st-century ecological and economic collapse. Alongside, Toronto’s Sandy Plotnikoff shows Foil Problem, part of an ongoing series of free-form collage with holographic printing foils.

October 13 from 6 p.m. to midnight: Halifax Nocturne at various locations, Halifax
What has become a fall marathon of Nuit Blanche–type events across Canada wraps up with Halifax’s Nocturne this weekend. Eighty-plus projects are on the roster here; highlights include Bob Bean’s photographs at the seawall, Michael McCormack’s installation FIELD at the Garrison Grounds, and Jordan Bennett and Ursula Johnson’s endurance performance at the Anna Leonowens Gallery.

October 13 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.: Opening for Garry Neill Kennedy at Diaz Contemporary, 100 Niagara Street, Toronto
Halifax conceptual-art maverick Garry Neill Kennedy brings his wall-painting ways to Toronto with QUID PRO QUO, a work that is part of his Ethics 101 series, which has previously included AN EYE FOR AN EYE and You Scratch My Back and I’ll Scratch Yours. Also featured is THE FOUR SEASONS, a series of chipboard paintings where each season is represented by paint colours that reflect it; for example, the colours Apple Blossom and Easter Bonnet are used in the Spring painting. Also watch for Kennedy’s public installation near G Gallery on Ossington Avenue.