We made an act of trust in the streets - sleeping and dreaming of a possible future where hyper mobile ‘creatives’ conflict with rough sleepers due to the demands they make of public space extending beyond free, pervasive wifi to include sweet leafy power nap spots. We let go for a nano second and dreamt of women who turned evil, we rejoiced at our ingenuity for finding private places in public space, we used a discarded yellow pages as a pillow, squeezed through grilles and became synchronised with the rhythms of gate opening and closing times. We surprised eachother at how far we could go and were as afraid of staying home and watching the news as we were of asking the city to hold us in an embrace not knowing what it's intentions might be.
We identified a spectrum of risks - those associated with staying home and watching the news on tv and the risks associated with going out and trying new things. I asked people to seek places to try to let go and loose consciousness. Among the group of participants were a few people who currently sleep outdoors most nights; we all shared what we knew about best outdoor sleeping practice.
Part of Games and Theory at the South London Gallery summer 2008
Urban Napping is also the Title of a video installation I presented in the exhibition. The video shows a re-enactment of a situation I created when I had a nap in a down town park in Sao Paulo.
http://www.southlondongallery.org/docs/exh/exhibition.jsp?id=151∞
http://www.flickr.com/photos/malinkychild/2760107544/∞
back to
HomePage