Sukhdev Sandhu
‘Night Haunts ‘
A nocturnal journal through 2006
Whatever happened to the London night? It certainly feels to me as if the London night has been decommissioned and that its ?ssile, threatening energies are now spent. However, thats only an instinct: it really needs to be tested out. And that, over the course of the year, is what Im going to be doing by reactivating the largely-dormant Victorian and early twentieth-century genre of the midnight traipse across the metropolis. I want to mainline nocturnal Londons covert and shadowy energies, to locate the ghosts of old London that have been unmoored during the makeovers and transformations of recent history, to have adventures with some of the characters who patrol or run amok through its vast acreage. My companion on these travels will be H.V.Morton. Or at least a slightly battered copy of his once-bestselling metrologue The Nights of London (1926). It shows Morton at his best, wearing out shoe leather as he hoofs it across London to music halls, dodgy pubs, Chinese New Year celebrations; visits zoos and hospitals and the river police at 2am; catches the last omnibus. Over the course of the next twelve months I will be revisiting some of Mortons sites as well as moving across newer nocturnal topographies. I will be ?ying above the city in police helicopters equipped with night-vision cameras that can pick out shirt labels from a height of over 2000 feet; wading through vast rivers of congealed grease and effluence in the sewers underneath the city; spending time with the nuns of Tyburn who pray through the night for the souls of Londoners
Sukhdev Sandhu
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Artangel Interaction has invited London-based writer Sukhdev Sandhu to record his forays into the London night in a contemporary nocturnal journal. This will unfold throughout 2006 in monthly episodes posted on a special website designed by Mind Unit and sound by international music artist, Scanner. If you would like to be kept informed as each episode is posted, please subscribe through the website, www.nighthaunts.org.uk
Artangel Interaction
Sukhdev Sandhus Night Haunts is the latest in Artangel Interactions ongoing series of artist-led projects, Nights of London exploring the nocturnal city with the people who wake, work and watch over it. Artangel Interaction develops participatory projects and events led by artists working with small groups of people as creative collaborators.
Night Haunts is made possible with the generous support of Mala Gaonkar. Artangel Interaction is funded by Arts Council Lottery, the generous support of Vincent and Elizabeth Meyer and the John Lyons Charity.
Artangels programmes are made possible through the generous support of Arts Council England, London, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, The Company of Angels and Artangel International Circle.
For press information and images of this project please contact Janette Scott at Artangel on js@artangel.org.uk.