Birmingham by Night was co-produced with young curators from We Don’t Settle. The exhibition focused on the perception of Birmingham’s night shift workers from the late Victorian period, and from today.

During the late 1800s, night soil men and lamplighters worked throughout the night for the Corporation of Birmingham (a precursor to the local council) and both used the Roundhouse as a base for their work.

These professions provided inspiration for our understanding of the roles, experiences, and perceptions of local night shift workers, then and now.

Through research and artist commissions, this display investigated opinions about the people who go to work whilst we are asleep to keep the city going.

The exhibition featured newly commissioned work by:

Christian Asare
Olivier Jamin
Ahsen Sayeed
Beth Bennett
Ryan Hart
Space_Play

Our We Don’t Settle curators and researchers were:

Ellis Winter
Raveena Kaur
Rahma Mohammed
Umar Sujad
Sampira Al-Fihri

This exhibition was created through a partnership between Roundhouse Birmingham and We Don’t Settle which aims to empower young people of colour from Birmingham and the Black Country to change the voice of heritage through the arts, research, and governance.

Header image by Ahsen Sayeed