Sleepers

Jones, Ruth L

Abstract

Public arts project, film, solo exhibition, funded by Arts Council Wales. Located in the 8000 year old oak wood Tycanol, Pembrokeshire, sleepers is an expansion and development of an earlier event and exhibition with Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast (2002). Jones' exhibition Liminal (2000) (www.recirca.com/backissues/c93/belfast.shtml) indicates previous engagement with similar themes and the paper 'Between a Flashing Star and a Gravestone: sleepers, liminality and communal dreaming' 2004 on the AHRC funded website 'Imaginal Regions' (www.imaginalregions.co.uk) defines the academic research context for sleepers.

The concept developed out of Jones' research and current investigations into liminal states and was prompted by a desire to reclaim the reclining body from a surveyed, passive, feminised and objectified position by characterising the sleeper in an active role as the one who dreams the world into being and who lies dormant, full of potential. 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Snow White' are mediaeval romances focusing on the theme of ideal love, but their origins are in earlier folklore where the sleeper, who can be male or female, is a being that embodies the land and acts as its protector or guardian. By inviting people to become a sleeper, Jones provoked a shift in perspective from the sleeper as object to the sleeper as subject with multiple possibilities for becoming. The project extended Jones' ongoing research to develop an expanded understanding of how public art projects can function in rural places.

sleepers solo exhibition at Oriel Mwldan, March-April 2007; the film was screened at the cinema at Theatr Mwldan. Exhibition featured four of Jones' short films (I:Crow, Ianuae, Taniec Kruka and chimaerae verae) together with photographic images and screen prints relating to the sleepers project and to the threshold between the human and animal kingdoms. Project was presented at the University of Minnesota June 2007.

• Exhibition Performance Type: Exhibition
• Conference Name: Sleepers
• Start Date: Mar 3, 2007
• End Date: Apr 14, 2007
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2007
• Keywords: sleepers
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1436357