The Log House and the Ocean
2019
In this project, I explored imagery from my dreams, contrasting these images against real-life actions that comprise my nighttime rituals. Having kept a detailed dream diary for 10 years, I’ve recently been exploring my dreams as a way of trying to understand how memory and trauma are connected in my own life. In my project for VIVA! And Galerie Verticale, I re-enacted certain unique dream memories within a repeating set of rituals. With the help of self-selected participants who offered me objects from a list I provided the gallery, within my repeating ritual, I engaged in intimate gestures with visitors using the dream objects they brought to me, sharing with them the dream the object was featured in so that they might relive it with me. Though the participants may never feel the moment in the same way I did because their own dream was not dredged to the surface, they do become inextricably linked with the dream, as now my memories of the dream are commingled with my memories of the performance and the interaction, making it all the more vivid and real, if losing something in the process.
For this project, the VIVA! Festival site, les ateliers Jean Brillant, became the Log House. The dirty, gritty, open architecture became my home base for the project and represented my waking life. I constructed a bed on wheels, and every night I made my bed from dozens of pillows, duvets, sheets, and other bedding, watching the other performances from my state just before dreaming and moving it around the space at will. Galerie Verticale, and Laval in general, became the Ocean, the dream world which consists of endless bodies of water; bathtubs, oceans, rivers, pools, and puddles. Every day, I travelled to Laval from Montreal to re-enact my dreams, trying to bring them to the surface and into reality via a set of rituals involving carrying water from the river to the old convent in which the organization’s offices are housed, and carrying water from the building back to the river. At the end of my day, I gathered my dream objects and brought them back to les ateliers Jean Brillant, to my bed, to my waking life, to see how concrete they’d become and to share them with the audiences there.
My ongoing dream work explores the relationship between trauma, memory and the body, and attempts, by bringing dreams to the surface of consciousness, to recover long-forgotten memories.
Laval is the ocean; the ocean is the world when I am dreaming. I share my dreams in intimate moments with friends and strangers in order to help bring forgotten memories to the surface and drag them out onto dry land.
I would like to bring one of my dreams to life for you, with your assistance.
Will you bring me:
A small birthday cake and a handful of change
A puff on your vape with cotton candy-flavoured e-juice
Reinforced-toe pantyhose
A giant bag of lucky charms marshmallows
Several baby food jars with lids
Real and artificial tall grasses, potted
Pears complexion soap
2-3 metres of white and silver fabric, covered in stains
A vending machine in the lobby of a Ramada hotel
A ride to the gas station
Hamburgers and toast
2 dozen bagels
An unfrosted cake, still in the tin
A trip to the candy store
Bum me a smoke
Many small stickers and a tiled bathroom I can put them in
A leather hood
A trip to Burger king with someone who can read Korean
A trip to a church with a gift shop
A ride in your RV
Bring your dog
A small head of leaf lettuce and a loaf of rye bread
A rifle-shaped stick
3 dozen fancy donuts to take to the festival. We’ll likely eat most of them on the way.
Matching bird costumes
Small pieces of selenite
A trip to 7-11 in Pierrefonds
