Nights of London

A series of projects by various artists
April 2005 - August 2006

NASA photograph of London at night

Running for just over a year, Nights of London was a thread of projects exploring the nocturnal life of the city. It ran through cinemas and galleries, was hosted on websites, burned onto CDs, written into letters, performed in nightclubs and broadcast via radio channels, before concluding in an old East End town hall that – for one night only – was filled with bat experts, musicians, cabaret artists and paranormal researchers. We heard stories from the unorthodox side of nightfall. We learned about ways of life that, despite their physical proximity, are all but invisible to most of us, most of the time.

It started in 2005 with Radio Nights, a documentary film exploring the intricacies of West London’s pirate radio culture created by artist David Blandy, working with young participants in the Avenues Youth Project in Queens Park.

In early 2006, Sarah Woodfine collaborated with adults using the services of Wandsworth MIND for When Night Draws In. Their beguiling, unsettling photographs came to fruition via a fantastical repertoire of drawings, model landscapes and pop-ups.

Later that year, the writer Sukhdev Sandhu embarked on several adventures with the nocturnal Londoners who drive the city’s pulse – from night cleaners and security guards to avian police and exorcists. His encounters informed Night Haunts, a nocturnal journal which can be read at the immersive, experiential website, or in the complete book, published in 2007.

July 2006 saw the launch of NightJam, a musical and visual journey by Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud) in collaboration with young people who had been homeless and were based at the New Horizon Youth Centre in King’s Cross.

Janice Kerbel’s radio play Nick Silver Can’t Sleep premiered in October 2006 with a cast led by Rufus Sewell, Josette Simon and Fiona Shaw. She worked with insomniacs, sleep scientists and botanists to develop her project, which was produced and broadcast by BBC Radio 3’s The Verb.

Autumn 2006 also saw the presentation of artist George Chakravarthi’s To the Man in My Dreams, a collaborative letter-writing project developed with members of SW5, the advice and information service for male and transgender sex workers. The project culminated in two live events.

On 15 November 2006, hip hop theatre artist Jonzi D presented A Night Sublyrical, a unique dance and poetry performance in the dark at the Electrowerkz club, co-created and performed by non-professional dancers recruited through London’s evening-classes.

The complete Nights of London series was celebrated on Friday 24 November 2006 with Because the Night at the old Bethnal Green Town Hall, London, featuring performances, readings and films dedicated to darkness by Sukhdev Sandhu, Scanner and special guests.

This project was supported by Arts Council England, Artangel International Circle, Special Angels and The Company of Angels