One Thousand and One Nights
“Women know all too well that the night belongs to others. They walk it like a foreign land, both feared and desired.” Djuna Barnes, Nightwood (1936)
For years I have gone out walking and thinking at night. I am drawn to the city when it sleeps, its faint lights, its silent corners, the echo of still things. I like to observe what remains when almost everything withdraws: structures, traces, minimal presences.
But going out alone at night, as a woman, is not a simple act. It is not neutral. It is frowned upon. It is risky. The night is not the same for everyone, for many women, it is still a territory of threat.
This project began as a collection of images of the sleeping city, and ended up becoming something more, a form of resistance. Because every nocturnal outing is also an act of survival. Each photograph is a record that I was there, that I managed to return. That I lived one more night.
So far, I have taken 235 photographs. The goal is to reach 1001, like Scheherazade. That woman who, in the tale, told a story every night to save her life. I walk and photograph for the same reason: to stay alive for one more night.
