Night Walking

This short video, filmed in black and white and later animated, was created during my first days in Orono, as I began my MFA in Intermedia. At the time, I was unfamiliar with the city, adjusting to new routines and habits—like walking alone at night on dark, empty streets. Unlike the place where I was born, Maine’s roads and streets are deeply shadowed, and in that darkness, fear takes shape.

Night Walking was an experiment in documenting my way home, using a subjective camera to reflect my point of view and explore the anxiety of a woman navigating an unfamiliar country and culture. The flickering streetlights, the shifting shadows, the sound of my own breath—I wove these elements together to amplify the tension between presence and absence, seen and unseen. The darkness does not just obscure; it reveals. It forces an awareness of one’s body in space, of each step, each sound, each imagined threat.

Ultimately, this piece raises a question: How safe are women when alone? The fear of walking at night is universal, embedded in muscle memory, inherited through cautionary tales and whispered warnings. No matter where we are, there is always an underlying awareness—a need to be alert, cautious, prepared. In the dark, we are both subject and spectator, haunted by the possibility of being watched, followed, or simply unseen.