Nights of London

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

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.
 

Event: Because the Night

A special night of performances, screenings and talks dedicated to darkness
Friday 24 November 2006, Bethnal Green Town Hall

Bat experts, paranormal researchers, musicians and cabaret artists celebrated the close of Artangel Interaction’s Nights of London series. Passionate nocturnalists Sukhdev Sandhu and Scanner provided a spin-off from their Artangel web projectNight Haunts in a special live performance entitled Haunted Lullabies: A psalm for London's night souls; and, in A Little Night Opera, Gentlewoman Naturalist Bridget Nicholls exposed to our ears the sonar clash of the feuding moth and bat that hatched the evolution of the butterfly. She performed with Master Gentleman pianist Nathaniel Woodcock as the moth (on melodic and percussive piano) and Mark Pilkington as the bat (on keyboard).

Ghost expert Alan Murdie and sleep scientist Julia Chapman provided talks, while amateur astronomer David Arditti invited guests to join him stargazing in the Library of the Night Project Space.

A cabaret hour was performed by experimental comedian Simon Munnery with magician Christian Lee, artist David Blandy, who presented his White and Black Minstrel Show: The Dark Night of the Soul and artist Donald Urquhart, who was Judy Garland in The Stars Have Lost Their Glitter.

Between performances, guests explored the faded beauty of Bethnal Green's former Town Hall; watched Hitchcock’s The Lodger (A Story of London Fog) through the fug of the smoking cinema; commissioned shadow-portraits by roving silhouettist Charles Burns; and sipped gin distilled by artist collective Puss & Mew while browsing the books and curiosities of the Library of the Night.