Up All Night Sleeping
Up All Night Sleeping
by Tara Parsons
December 8 - December 23, 2010
chashama 461 Gallery
461 West 126th Street
New York, NY
Thursday & Friday, 12-8pm
Saturday & Sunday, 11-6pm; and by appointment
chashama is pleased to present the work of Tara Parsons, one of our studio artists, with Up All Night Sleeping. Up All Night Sleeping is an interactive project that asks viewers to contribute their dreams to the installation, which has been presented at community art events at the Gateway on 126th street in Harlem, at the Hacia Afuera festival in East Harlem, in DUMBO Brooklyn, and on Governor's Island. The artist is fascinated in our collective dream life, and in creating an actual and visual record of it. Do you have recurring dreams? Do you always dream in a theme? Are you plagued with nightmares? Are you constantly swept away in daydreams? Participants are invited to lie down in an enchanting canopy bed and dream away. The pillow will be speaking to them, coaxing out their dreams. They can then write down their dreams on streamers and attach them above the bed. The canopy becomes filled with these ribbons of words, speaking about our collective sleeping life. Some of these dreams are serious and intense, perhaps letting people relieve a burden in an anonymous situation. Others are silly and fun, and others still are perverse. The many facets of expression allow the audience to come away with a variety of emotional responses. Tara Parsons has taken these dreams and has translated them to charcoal drawings. Come and see other's nighttime visions interpreted. Write down a dream of you own and the artist may choose to draw it. If you have already contributed to this project, perhaps you will see your own dream on the gallery's walls?
STATEMENT
Concept and material are linked in my work; I work three-dimensionally in sculpture, installation and interactive projects. The materials I use are coupled to the ideas that I am dealing with in each separate project. I am constantly learning new techniques and processes as the need arises; yet most of the materials that I gravitate toward are simple. Thematically I draw upon my own experiences and react to an inner and outer emotional life that often delves into current political, socio-economic, and/or environmental events. Despite underlying serious themes, the work plays with a lighter, more amusing duality.
