Bedtime Stories and Social Dreaming; new myths for a different tomorrow

This workshop explored the intersection of two forms of dreaming; the personal/unconscious and the public/collective. Over the period of the workshop participants discussed, debated, researched and imagined how our cultural fears, personal hopes and collective anxieties manifest in our nocturnal rest.

Through different visual, textual and material methods participants explored how to recall, imagine and visualise our dreams; from new forms of cultural myth to alternative cautionary tales, from subaltern futures to intersectional bedtime stories.

The aim of the workshop was to investigate ways to prepare, experience and express our hopeful potentials, through the collective narrativization of our cultural imaginary. Over three days we deployed different ways to collectivise our personal experiences of sleep, rest, social hopes and political nightmares. The workshop culminated in a public exhibition; a design of a space to experience the work produced throughout the week.