Why do we sleep? Whilst most living beings spend a substantial portion of their lives asleep, there is no scientific consensus on the purpose of sleeping [1]. However we know that in the case of humans sleep has different phases, each with a distinctive neurological activity; that physiologically we associate sleeping patterns with rest; whilst culturally we tend to associate it almost universally with the act of dreaming.
When we sleep we are finally rendered free from communication and are left to operate exclusively in the realm of interpretation. It’s impossible for the others to know how we feel, or what we are thinking, so not even our gestures or movements can translate into meaning.
The extreme politization of every aspect of human life, for better and for worse, has deprived even the acts of sleeping and of dreaming from their emotional qualities. This exhibition wishes to align with previous personal efforts to generate a turn towards “the emotive”.
The premise in which communication is an impossibility, makes this “emotive turn” a viable path towards “feeling” in exhibition-making.
I had a dream. It started with friendship and finished with love. It involved all the aspects that friendship usually involves: trust, respect, care, humour, and love. It involved all the aspects that love usually involves: trust, respect, care, humour and friendship.
As friendship turned into love, I was reminded of all the love that inhabits my friendships. The dream felt very much like my life.
Mexico City, 04:59 am, everyday. I wake up invariably lonely and by myself cuddling a Babar plush toy. I answer emails, make some phone calls, stare at the ceiling, sometimes I drink water.
Orizaba, 04:59 am, one morning, March 2023. I woke up in the arms of another guy, feeling less lonely cuddling my Babar plush toy. I felt secure, he told me months later that I seemed very happy.
Mexico City, 04:59 am, one morning, March 2024. I woke up by myself, holding tight the same old Babar plush toy, and extremely unhappy. I stared at a photograph in my bedroom of a group of three male heads, two cuddling and one facing the opposite direction. Are they sleeping? Are they revelling in pleasure? Are they dreaming? Impossible to know.
A few years ago, a friend of mine told me to stop dreaming, after a brief discussion about my immediate future plans. The reason, he argued, was that from dreams you wake up.