2021

Night Owls

In 2021, The Night Gallery presents Night Owls, an exhibition in Columbus, Indiana, as part of the Midnight Palace installation at Exhibit Columbus: New Middles.

Columbus is a city of night owls: 39 percent of the population works in manufacturing, compared to 9 percent nationwide. Among this group, many second and third-shift workers begin their “days” in the evening and finish work in the morning. Other residents also burn the midnight oil: restaurant workers, truckers, parents of newborns, dedicated stargazers, residents with families overseas. However, many civic and amenity spaces only serve the sunlit-hours. How can we design for the midnight city?

Night Owls presents film, video, animation and other works which document and are inspired by the lives of second and third-shift workers and spaces of nighttime, past, present, and future. In a world where the majority of design focuses on the daytime and the lives of 9-5 workers, Night Owls focuses on the worlds we live and build at night.

Located at the Cummins Sears Building in Columbus, Indiana, Midnight Palace is a temporary installation inspired by the atmospheric qualities of nighttime and designed for the city’s night owls. It features a “wall of light” inspired by the historic light-bulbs from Columbus’ streetscape. Night Owls will be exhibited on a series of screens in the installation, which will host “drive-in” and “walk-by” screenings of different scales throughout Exhibit Columbus, August to November 2021.
In partnership with YES Cinema.

Schedule

August 19 
Genius Loci
Adrien Merigeau

August 19–October 1
Selected night time photography from Exhibit Columbus Photography Fellows
 
On the Origins of High Water
Virginia Hanusik

From the Mississippi Watershed
David Schalliol

October 2–November 4 
Nightshift Spitalfields
Julius-Cezar MacQuarie

Night Owls, Columbus
Future Firm

November 5 
Night Owls: A Conversation with Julius-Cezar MacQuarie & Cyrus Peñarroyo

November 5–November 28
Nightshift Spitalfields 
Julius-Cezar MacQuarie

Manifest Destiny 
Cyrus Peñarroyo