Growing up in a small town in Poland I was familiar with quiet nights and streets plunged into darkness, occasionally pierced by a streetlamp or dimly lit shop window. Families gathered in their homes and a serene silent stillness prevailed. All this changed when I moved to London. The city, where I have lived for 14 years, transforms into a festival of light and sound every night, ever stimulating the senses as it does during the day.
Arriving into Christchurch, New Zealand’s third largest city, my expectations were set to encounter city life. Strolling around the centre, which still bears the scars from a devastating earthquake in 2011, these expectations were met during daylight. People strolled along the streets, perused the shops, gathered in squares, waited for buses, ate in restaurants and drank in coffee shops. All this was to change at night.
As nighttime fell on Christchurch its inhabitants were largely nowhere to be seen. Whilst initially an eery experience, encountering seemingly endless empty streets, I soon felt transported back to my childhood. I sought to capture the serenity of the city resting ahead of its next revival.
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