*POSTPONED* Night Scenes conference

6th Floor, The Bartlett School of Architecture, 22 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0QB

Two parallel roundtables of recent masters graduates and current doctoral researchers bring together an array of perspectives on the urban night, migration, integration and culture. These draw from a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds, theoretical frameworks and empirical investigations.

• Jordan Rowe and Mia Rafalowicz-Campbell (UCL)
• Adam Walls (UCL)
• Arba Bekteshi (University of Sussex)
• Amalia Calderón (University of Amsterdam)
• Buket Boz (UCL)
• Jiawei Zhao (King's College London)
• Laura-Solmaz Litschel
• Alexander Salem (King's College London)
• Lily Moodey (UCL)
• Pol Esteve Castello (UCL)
• Samanta Bellotta (Queen Mary, University of London)
• Sebastian Buser (UCL)
• Shreeta Lakhani (SOAS)
• Vincent Baptist (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Book now (Free)

The sixth floor is accessible via lifts, is wheelchair accessible, and has step-free access. For more details consult the AccessAble page. Accessible toilets are also available on the ground floor, and toilets for the use of people who require gender-neutral facilities are available on all floors. For specific accessibility questions and requests, please email Lo Marshall, lo.marshall.13@ucl.ac.uk

Christopher Ingold Lecture Theatre, 20 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AJ

Authorities have historically wrestled with the issue of night-time control, and the hours after dark are often still perceived as harboring threats to public order and potential criminality. Current policy attention to night-time urban economies, exemplified by the creation of night offices, indicates an increasing and more positive interest in the potentials of cities and culture at night.

This panel will be invited to share their understanding of how design and governance are shaping diversity in 24-hour cities. If inequalities are magnified at night, and issues of safety are paramount, how can these be addressed through policy and practice interventions? How do questions of culture, migration and integration manifest in the work of those managing cities after dark? What research and interventions will enhance the equitability of cities at night in the future?

• Mirik Milan, Co-founder, Vibe Lab and former Night Mayor of Amsterdam
• Bryony Beynon, Managing Director, Good Night Out Campaign
• Jo Cox-Brown, Founder, Night Time Economy
• Florence Lam, Fellow, Director, Global Lighting Design Leader, Arup
• Philip Kolvin QC, Cornerstone Barristers

Co-chaired by Professor Ben Campkin (UCL) and Professor Michele Acuto (Melbourne School of Design)

Book now (£5)

The Christopher Ingold Lecture Theatre is wheelchair accessible, has step-free access and a hearing assistance system. For more details consult the lecture theatre page and/or the page for the Christopher Ingold Building on AccessAble. Accessible toilets are also available, including for the use of people who require gender-neutral facilities. For specific accessibility questions and requests, please email Lo Marshall, lo.marshall.13@ucl.ac.uk

Room G.12, The Bartlett School of Architecture, 22 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0QB

The conference continues with a day of contributions from an exciting range of academics, activists, artists, practitioners, and writers.

• Judith Walkowitz (Professor Emerita of History at Johns Hopkins University), Soho’s Clubs, the Property Market, and Jewish Entrepreneurs

This presentation assesses the career of shady nightclub entrepreneur Jack Isow, his contested history with the police and his place in Jewish urban folklore. During the 1930s, Isow ran a string of nightclubs in Soho, including the legendary Shim Sham (1935-1937), a black club made famous by the entertainment press for its hot jazz and interracial dancing. The Shim Sham came to represent the “democratic” and internationalist spirit of the left Popular Front, despite the racism, grafting of patrons, exploitation of staff, and depredations of marauding gangsters that also transpired in this space. The presentation goes on to trace Isow’s postwar career as a successful owner of Isow’s, a Jewish-style restaurant that catered to Hollywood and Broadway talent in London as well as a local property speculator implicated in the explosion of the postwar sex and property market in Soho.

• Sukhdev Sandhu (Associate Professor, English and Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University, documentary maker and writer), Revisiting Night Haunts

Night Haunts was written many moons ago - before widespread broadband, smart phones, the financial crash, the interest (commercial as well as academic) in sleep studies. This talk explores the book's ellipses and echoes, and draws out resonances between its evocation of nocturnal London and post-Hurricane Sandy blackout Manhattan.

• Robert Shaw (Lecturer in Geography, Newcastle University), Nightwalkers, Party-Goers, Pioneers and Criminals: conceptualizations of the inhabitants of the nocturnal frontier

Despite repeated assertions that we live in a twenty-four hour society, data shows that the majority of people spend the majority of nights in and around the home. Furthermore, those who do inhabit public space at night are often subject to well-worn discursive framings, which themselves are socially differentiated by class, gender, race or other factors. Drawing from my description of the night as a ‘fragmenting frontier’, this paper explores how four of the most common framings have developed historically and are still used today, often to the detriment of those who use the night-time city. I will argue that advocates of a right to the city require a temporal dimension, particularly as nocturnals are disproportionately drawn from socially marginalized groups.

• DJ Ritu (Co-founder Club Kali)
• Chardine Taylor Stone (Cultural producer, activist, writer, educator)
• Nicola Baldwin (Dramatist and Director, UCL Urban Lab Creative Fellow)
• Julius-Cezar MacQuarie (Global Teaching Fellow, CEU and Associate Lecturer Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, UBB)

• Zoe Adjonyoh (Chef and Writer, Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen)
• Ella Harris (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Geography Dept., Birkbeck) and Mark Knightley (Co-artistic Director, Crowded Room)
• Emilia Smeds (PhD Candidate, STEaPP and Research Assistant, Centre for Transport Studies, UCL)
• Alessio Kolioulis (Teaching Fellow, Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL)

Book now (£10)

Room G.12 is located on the ground floor of 22 Gordon Street, and is wheelchair accessible, has step-free access and a hearing assistance system. For more details consult the AccessAble page. Accessible toilets are also available on the ground floor, as are toilets for the use of people who require gender-neutral facilities. For specific accessibility questions and requests, please email Lo Marshall, lo.marshall.13@ucl.ac.uk

Drawing Room, 1st Floor, House of St Barnabas, 1 Greek Street, Soho Square, London W1D 4NQ

This final event of the conference takes place in Soho, a neighbourhood that encapsulates the conference themes of nightlife, migration, integration and culture.

On the corner of Soho Square, 1 Greek Street has witnessed Soho’s shifting social and cultural landscape since the 1600s, becoming a House of Charity in 1846 to provide a hostel for those experiencing homelessness. Following a decision by trustees in 2005 it was reconfigured as a members’ club, with services supporting people experiencing homelessness into lasting employment.

• Dan de la Motte (Queer Tours of London), who will discuss key sites and people in Soho’s queer histories, from Soho Square to Muriel Belcher’s Colony Club
• Lo Marshall (Research Fellow, UCL Urban Lab), whose Soho Scenes soundtrack will traverse artists, spaces and scenes whose music resonates with the themes of migration, integration and culture

Full programme to be announced. Capacity is limited, tickets will be allocated in order of booking.

Book now (£5)

As a Grade 1 listed building House of St Barnabas has access limitations. For more information click here. For accessibility question and requests please email Lo Marshall lo.marshall.13@ucl.ac.uk