LONDON.- Whitechapel Gallery announced that Nocturnal Creatures, its new free annual summer late-night contemporary art festival, took over London’s East End on Saturday 21 July attracting more than 6,000 visitors in it’s first year.

Curated by the Whitechapel Gallery and inspired by the success of late-night cultural initiatives across the UK including the popular Art Night, local cultural and historic venues were transformed by spectacular artworks and performance for one night only.

This free festival was curated by the Whitechapel Gallery and inspired by the success of late-night cultural initiatives across the UK including the popular Art Night. It featured

• Over 6,000 visitors across more than 33 sites.
• Over 55 artists participating and on show across the night
• A digital reach of over 122,000 on the night through Whitechapel Gallery channels
• New partners including Broadgate, Sculpture and the City, Whitechapel Bell Foundry and White Chapel Building

The Nocturnal Creatures line-up celebrated the Whitechapel Gallery’s East End location and highlighted many artists featured in the Gallery’s triennial summer exhibition The London Open 2018. The festival featured new site-specific commissions responding directly to the area’s fascinating buildings and locations and artworks from major international artists installed across the area.

Highlights from Nocturnal Creatures included an immersive audio-visual environment created by Tom Lock and staged with our headline sponsor, Broadgate in their new events hub 3FA Space. Hundreds of people were attracted to the mesmerizing moving visuals and electronic soundtrack and joined in with the performers animating the space. Rachel Pimm transformed the vacant Whitechapel Bell Foundry. In a rare opportunity to see inside the foundry building, she presented a new performance work meditating on its history and materiality. A parade of plants moved down Brick Lane in Lucia Monge’s Planton Movil and revelers gathered for Larry Achiampong’s beat-driven soundtrack accompanied by Shiraz Bayjoo’s visuals at the White Chapel Building.

The first Nocturnal Creatures festival was held in association with Sculpture in the City, who animated the 18 artworks situated across the nearby area, part of the eighth edition of the programme, with artist tours and talks. The night also saw the premiere of Musicity x Sculpture in the City, with Nocturnal Creatures visitors the first to hear ten new audio tracks in special sites via the Musicity app, as well as live performances by four of the musicians: Midori Komachi, Angèle David-Guillou, SuperCool feat. Fay Cannings and Bambooman. For the festival’s Associate programme, ten galleries in the local area also opened their doors late into the night.

Iwona Blazwick, Whitechapel Gallery Director, said: “It was exciting to see so many people discovering extraordinary works of art in such unusual locations in the city by night.”

Sophie Kenyon, Broadgate’s Head of Events & Communications, said: “We are delighted to have been a part of the inaugural festival and to launch our new events hub, 3FA Space. Art, design and culture are key for Broadgate as London’s largest pedestrianised neighbourhood, and our partnership with Whitechapel Gallery enables us to bring this to life.”

Stella Ioannou, co-director of Sculpture in the City, said: “We are delighted to have partnered with Whitechapel Gallery for the inaugural Nocturnal Creatures festival. This new addition to the London art scene reinforces the connection between Sculpture in the City and Whitechapel Gallery; a relationship both geographical and artistic given the organizations close proximity and Iwona Blazwick’s role as a member of Sculpture in the City’s Arts Advisory Group. The evening was a unique opportunity to combine both architecture and sound, adding another layer to the experience of the City.”