'Curating and dreaming are both activities in which it is impossible to separate our thoughts from what we are simultaneously inventing. There is no real pause, no free time, no rest. Audiences, actors, the stage, and the script are always demanding more and more dreams to perform, even if those dreams turn out to be terrible nightmares.'
- Victor Palacios (Curator, Amsterdam) |
Exhibition Summary
This project will result in an exhibition of works that will invite the public to actively engage with dreams as part of their creative practice and encourage collaborations with professionals in other fields of expertise such as science, therapy and medicine. The final exhibition will present the artists work along side their dream diaries, psychologist reports and answers to questionnaires and recordings of individual and group sessions.
Four artists have been chosen to take part based on the diversity of skill, artform, education and inherent reasons for agreeing to take part. Designed in the aesthetics of a dream, the final exhibition of works will present a landscape of desires, ideas and thoughts and challenge the role of the curator through a contemporary approach to curatorial practice.
In A Waking Dream aims to facilitate active sleep in order to strengthen the bond between the subconscious and artwork. Artists will intimately participate in a dialogue with specialists within the fields of psychology, neurology, eastern medicine, hypnosis, past-life regression, dream science and art therapy. The experimental value of this project lies in promoting productivity, spontaneity, emotional growth and facilitating conflict resolution, functional regression, affective regulation and crystallize and precipitate artistic creation through a psychoanalytic approach to creative work.
Four artists have been chosen to take part based on the diversity of skill, artform, education and inherent reasons for agreeing to take part. Designed in the aesthetics of a dream, the final exhibition of works will present a landscape of desires, ideas and thoughts and challenge the role of the curator through a contemporary approach to curatorial practice.
In A Waking Dream aims to facilitate active sleep in order to strengthen the bond between the subconscious and artwork. Artists will intimately participate in a dialogue with specialists within the fields of psychology, neurology, eastern medicine, hypnosis, past-life regression, dream science and art therapy. The experimental value of this project lies in promoting productivity, spontaneity, emotional growth and facilitating conflict resolution, functional regression, affective regulation and crystallize and precipitate artistic creation through a psychoanalytic approach to creative work.
Exhibition Description
‘As against Freud’s view that the dream is essentially a wish-fulfillment, I hold that the dream is a spontaneous self-portrayal, in symbolic form, of the actual situation in the unconscious.
- Carl Gustav Jung, 1974 |
Scientifically, dreams are recognized as the result of brain activation during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Psychophysiologist and leader in the scientific study of lucid dreaming, Dr. Stephen LaBerge explores the idea that active sleep has been found to be intimately involved with learning and memory. He suggests that dreaming is not communication but creation. The difference being that according to Freud and Jung, dreams communicate our unspoken desires and conflicts and allow us to recognize what our subconscious is asking to modify where as Stephen LaBerge suggests that dreams are subconscious creations saying, ‘in a lucid dream you look around and realize that the whole world that you’re seeing is something that your mind is creating’ (LaBerge, 1992).
In response to this, In A Waking Dream aims to turn on active dreaming in order to strengthen the bond between the subconscious and artwork. Partaking artists will intimately participate in a dialogue with a broad spectrum of specialists within the fields of psychology, neurology, hypnosis, past-life regression, dream science and contemporary art.
If Dr. Stephen LaBerge is correct in saying that dreaming is creation not communication, then this project has the potential to reveal and translate ones most intimate motivations into art. This project aims to modify the personalities and refine the creative practice of the artists as well as reveal the often overlooked but telling responses to reality and waking life challenges.
Expectations and assumptions of the works are expected to alter according to the type of action research invested. Taking into context each artists background and inherent reasons for agreeing to partake the final pieces will be the outcomes of direct interactions with experiences since the conception of the project.
In response to this, In A Waking Dream aims to turn on active dreaming in order to strengthen the bond between the subconscious and artwork. Partaking artists will intimately participate in a dialogue with a broad spectrum of specialists within the fields of psychology, neurology, hypnosis, past-life regression, dream science and contemporary art.
If Dr. Stephen LaBerge is correct in saying that dreaming is creation not communication, then this project has the potential to reveal and translate ones most intimate motivations into art. This project aims to modify the personalities and refine the creative practice of the artists as well as reveal the often overlooked but telling responses to reality and waking life challenges.
Expectations and assumptions of the works are expected to alter according to the type of action research invested. Taking into context each artists background and inherent reasons for agreeing to partake the final pieces will be the outcomes of direct interactions with experiences since the conception of the project.
Creative Dreaming Process
In A Waking Dream has been sponsored by Mary Hoang, owner and psychologist at The Indigo Project, who has developed an eight week Mindfullness Meditation program specifically for the project. Mary and her team consisting of art therapist and dream specialist Heather Devine and Master of Eastern Medicine and practitioner of Shiatsu and Ki-Yoga Jack Marshall will be responsible for 'mind' and 'body' and revisit each artist once a week making alterations to their program where appropriate.
Ilana Laps, psychotherapist and owner of Dream Lab will be meeting with the artists each week for the duration of the project to discuss dreams and related topics from many perspectives including Jungian and Freudian. Responsible for 'spirit', Ilana will advise artists on dream recall, lucid dreaming techniques, dream analysis and dream work.
The project will be documented through personal dream diaries as well as audiovisual recordings of the dream circle meetings and weekly psychologist reports and questionnaires.
The Australia Council Emerging and Experimental Arts Grant will fund research crossing art and science in collaboration with Dream Lab and The Indigo Project. The experimental value of this project lies in promoting productivity, spontaneity, emotional growth and facilitating conflict resolution, functional regression, affective regulation and crystallize and precipitate artistic creation through a psychoanalytic approach to creative work.
See Project Schedule for the detailed eight week program.
Ilana Laps, psychotherapist and owner of Dream Lab will be meeting with the artists each week for the duration of the project to discuss dreams and related topics from many perspectives including Jungian and Freudian. Responsible for 'spirit', Ilana will advise artists on dream recall, lucid dreaming techniques, dream analysis and dream work.
The project will be documented through personal dream diaries as well as audiovisual recordings of the dream circle meetings and weekly psychologist reports and questionnaires.
The Australia Council Emerging and Experimental Arts Grant will fund research crossing art and science in collaboration with Dream Lab and The Indigo Project. The experimental value of this project lies in promoting productivity, spontaneity, emotional growth and facilitating conflict resolution, functional regression, affective regulation and crystallize and precipitate artistic creation through a psychoanalytic approach to creative work.
See Project Schedule for the detailed eight week program.