Embrace the night: the floating sleepers of Sicily – in pictures

Sleepers 02

Heyert documented a diverse range of people, sleeping naked, single or in couples, for two or three hours at a time. ‘I would stand on a balcony inside my apartment,’
she explains, ‘about 20 feet above the subjects. I put a soft foam pallet down on the floor with a soft, black theatrical cloth over it. I put material over the window so that some light came through and illuminated the bodies. I asked my subjects to do whatever they had to to sleep. Then I’d stand up on the balcony and watch them for hours’