A bed, a dream, a brick
Staci Bu Shea, Mira Thompson
“A bed, a dream, a brick" is a series of immersive workshops created by long-time collaborators and friends Staci Bu Shea and Mira Thompson. Together we will explore the materiality of subjectivity and the metaphysics of the bed. How is this private and intimate place also a space in which we can contemplate our connection with the world beyond?
Many ideas are generated from the bed, supported by the restoration of the physical body and unconscious processes of dreams. The bed is an ancient piece of furniture, as sleep is a vital part of living. On average we spend twenty-six years of our lives sleeping and seven years trying to fall asleep. Since so much of our mortal time happens in bed, it also holds so much of our unexpressed, inner world. At its worst, the bed is a lonely place. If there by necessity, without choice, one is disconnected from the outside, material world. A window, a smartphone, and forms of creativity and spirituality become gateways for connection.
The most critical bridge between the architectural and the psychological interior is the human sensorium: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, and physical balance. All bring the world of objects into the subjective realm, and influence mixed-ability perspectives. We seek to bring together the coexistence of subjects and objects in the bedroom, neither to objectify or fetishize either, and embrace the sensorium as essential for practicing accessibility. We’re interested in the sixth sense, popularly known as the paranormal sense of psychical intuition, but in scientific terms is the sense of physical balance, the sixth sense names the inner mechanism that allows a body to orient itself in space and to navigate its way through its surroundings. Throughout the workshop, we invite you to engage the senses, and especially this sixth sense. How do we develop an intimate awareness of the role distance and proximity, movement and perception, play in the formation of inner life, especially from the bed?
What we’ll do and how to participate:
Over the course of five workshops, our study material and discussions will support our exploration and appraisal of (our) inner life and the object world. This workshop series is both singular and collective expression. We would like you to create a multi-functional/sensorial bed which comprises each participant’s unique artistic expression, and will culminate into a presentation as part of the Rietveld Uncut exhibition at Stedelijk Museum.
Drawing on Johanna Hedva’s indispensable essay “Sick Woman Theory,” we invite you to engage with “the bed” from a disability-centered perspective. To participate, share a proposal for new bedtime stories and/or nighttime rituals that generate different perspectives and functions of the body, but also how the dreams we experience from our bed expand beyond the domestic.
Students from all departments are welcome to join us along with their various media interests and diverse artistic practices. We seek a balance between the material and immaterial: objects that interact and intervene with our relations as well as affect and vibes that influence how we come together. Sculpture, installation, performance/scores, text-based works, audiovisual and various mixed media are all very welcome.
Practicalities and access:
The workshop series takes place on Wednesdays: 28 January, 4 & 11 February, and 4 March from 17:00-19:00, on Zoom which includes automated closed captions, and Monday, 9 March from 10:00-13:00 (TBC) for installation at Stedelijk Museum. It’s important that you are present for these sessions, and for the online sessions we ask that you participate from bed.
The workshops feature presentations on theory and practice by Mira and Staci, discussion, student presentations, and feedback for the development of the work. Students also need to develop/work on their ideas in between workshops.
It is important for the lives of the organizers that we minimize the risk of Covid infection and spread, so we will primarily meet online. When we meet together for installation at the museum, we ask that you do a self-test beforehand, and not join if you have any symptoms.
If you have any access related questions, please write to us staci.bushea@gmail.com mira_thompson@hotmail.com.