Nightwalker
A woman goes for a walk at night.
A 25 minute audio piece available to listen and download on bandcamp (Part 1 and 2).
Nightwalker was developed whilst exploring new ideas for art work about women at night, seeking new narratives that bring out the beautiful qualities of nighttime and women’s lives at night.
Nightwalker is set within an fictional city, made of aspects of many real cities. The text and the sound were written/composed at the same time, informing each other to create this sonic journey. Whilst making Nightwalker Hannah spent time in Bristol, Newcastle and Gateshead, Barcelona, Marseille and Edinburgh, and spoke with women about walking at night in Stoke-on-Trent. Two inspirations (of which there are many) for this work include the ‘Feminist City’ by Leslie Kern, and the inspiring urban design work of Publica.
Nightwalker lives within a body of work aiming to foster a postivie relationship to darkness, and generate alternative narratives for women at night. The piece includes solitude, relationship to the built world, nocturnal animals, transformation, fantasy, memory, sound, freedom, relationship to the body, altered physical states/experience, darkness, agency and returning home.
For more thoughts on the process and thinking behind Nightwalker visit my substack article.
‘I became very fond of the dark… The night is its own fragile world, a natural phenomena, under threat. The darkness is a potential refuge, hospitable, but one that is hard to access. As a woman walking at night, I am acting against domesticity.’ - Quote from article.
Performances of Nightwalker:
Launched at The Cube Microplex, 1st November 2025.
This live performance of Nightwalker, included the text being delivered live and sections of the piece being delivered in total darkness.
‘When it ended, I sat wanting more darkness, to feel the possible and impossible feelings...epic and eternal...to dare to have the audacity to take space in the dark, to melt into the corners’
- Audience response
Work in progress sharing at GIFT, 4th May 2025
This sharing of the audio in development was followed by a 30 minute night walk in the local area directly following listening to the audio together. The nightwalk was planned by Hannah, bespoke to the area and crafted in relation to the audio piece.
Nightwalker was made within a research and development period to make new work on women’s lives at night. Afterpartyafterpartyafterparty, was developed alongside Nightwalker, a dance and music collaboration exploring female DJ culture and nighttime dancefloors.
Creative Team:
Composed and Written by Hannah Sullivan
Dramaturgy by Tanuja Amarasuriya
Creative sound mentorship/collaboration from Sally Pilkington, Daisy Moon, Yas Clarke, Christina Hardinge.
Final track mastered by Dylan Mallett
Research and Development produced by Ellen Booth
Made with support from:
The Brigstow Institute, MAYK, GIFT, ReStoke and Arts Council England.
Project Image taken by Jan Ming Lee during a night walk with Hannah in Bristol, 2024.
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Within the process of making Nightwalker, a research project supported by Brigstow, at University of Bristol, created an intial space for conversation and academic research. With Dr Eleanor Rycroft and Dr Andy Flack, we brought together three perspectives; historical, environmental and performative to consider the feminine contemporary nightwalker. Typically our perception of a woman walking at night is shrouded in danger, this project seeks to examine and alter the narrative of women’s presence within the urban night. And In doing so identify what treasures or transformations are being lost through women’s exclusion from certain spaces and times. Both walking and the night time environment have significant impacts on our physical health and wellbeing. This research will pay close attention to the effects of nightwalking on our emotions, physicality and imagination, and how women's wellbeing may be intrinsically connected to the practice of nightwalking This research will also include artists, Nina Santes, Jan-Ming Lee, Katsura Isobe and Ann-Marie Fairbrother, to test and discuss nightwalking scores developed.
