Worldwide Dreams

My Long-lost friend has the same dream!

2008-10-04T08:50:00.001-07:00

Wow. I hadn't really been into the idea of Facebook until recently, but now I'm really glad I went on. Yesterday I got a message from a friend I lost contact with when we were 17. We were exchange students together in France, and before doing our home-stays, we were roommates for a month in the summer at a ski resort in the Alps.

So, I was thrilled to hear from her, but then absolutely amazed after she read my "Dream of the Lost Opportunity" posting about my recurring passport dream. She said she's had variations of that dream, too! I've never heard anyone else say that, though I can see how its theme would be an easy modern archetype...

Do You Have a Recurring Dream?

2008-09-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

Aside from needing people from different walks of life for the project, we also need people who have interesting dreams! They don't have to be recurring, but the recurring ones are usually pretty powerful.

Even if you don't live in or around New York, if you'd be interested in the content of the dream being read in the video installation, please get in touch or post it. Thanks!

(I also have a bit of a background in dream interpretation and would be glad to give an interpretation to anyone who's interested. I was hired in college as a dream interpreter--no kidding!--and I studied the Freudian interpretation of dreams for a couple of years. Acquaintances have often said I'm right on with my interpretations...)

Dream of the Lost Opportunity

OK--here's a sample recurring dream of mine that I had throughout my twenties and thirties.
I dream I have some amazing opportunity waiting for me and I just have to get to the airport and get on the plane, but as I get there, I realize I've forgotten my passport and the plane is leaving. Every time I have the dream, I reference all my previous passport dreams, and berate myself even moreso, thinking "I can't believe this is actually happening when I've dreamt about it so many times..." There are sometimes other variations on it--like I remember to take my passport but I am suddenly shrinking and can't reach it on the shelf. This dream's message is so
clear,which makes it seem all the more important to me. Evidentally my subconscious still thinks I need to hear it over and over, though! (I thankfully don't have it much anymore.)

Anyway, the painting I did above (Dream of the Lost Opportunity) was inspired by it.

Thanks very much if you're willing to share a dream of yours!

Want a Portrait Painted of You?

2008-09-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a lot harder than I anticipated getting interesting strangers to talk on video in New York. I'm so used to drawing in parks and having people come up to me and asking me to draw them, that I didn't think the video element would be that huge a problem, especially since there will be a portrait painted of them in the end. But in trying to get vendors on the street so far, everyone is concerned that their bosses will see the footage and that it will be a problem, even thought I promise that it only takes a few minutes. Even a homeless man told me he couldn't stop panhandling for 5 minutes--despite my buying him dinner and promise to give him $10! This has all convinced me I need to find a new way to find willing participants...

Are you interested? Or do you know someone who might be ? I'd love to hear from you if so!
What we need most are people who either have some kind of interesting/non-conventional lifestyle or aspect about them, or else people who fit the bill of being entirely mainstream, "paragon of society" types.

Thanks a million if you want to volunteer to be an interviewee/portrait subject, or if you have any ideas for us!

Getting Started: First Portraits

2008-09-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

What is Worldwide Dreams?

Worldwide Dreams is a collaborative project between me (Kim Gledhill), a painter in New York City and Kakoli Sen, a painter in Baroda, Gujarat in India. Kakoli came across my work online, contacted me, and we found we had similar concerns in our paintings and a similar interest in dreams. The organization Transcultural Exchange had put of a call for proposals for
collaborations between artists in different countries and we were enthusiastic to submit one and work on something together.

In speaking to each other more through e-mail, we also realized we were both also interested in the question of whether people from very different walks of life and cultures have similar kinds of dreams. (For instance, does a person's lot in life completely dictate the dreams they have or is there something more archetypal that might come up throughout different societies?)

We decided we wanted to explore this in our project and we made a plan to interview people--both mainstream and and way outside of the mainstream--to find out what kinds of dreams they have. And just because we were curious, we also set out to find what kinds of aspirations these people have and if they are reflected somehow in their dreams.

Going Low-tech

Kakoli and I are each interviewing people in our own societies, using really low-tech and non-intrusive digital media. We're also taking still photos and sending all the videos and pictures to each other. From the exchanged media, each of us if painting portraits of the other's interviewees. As part of the final project, we will interweave all the video footage to accompany the portrait installation.

What we've found so far...

First of all, it's been a little surprising to find that many people do not remember their dreams at all! This has bit kind of problematic, but many of the non-dreamer have something definitive to say about their ambitions. It seems so far that the greater one's poverty is, the less likely they are to remember them. But as far as the people who DO remember their dreams go, there have already been several correlations in the imagery and the kinds of dreams between them.

Portraits so Far...

The first 3 below are my work; the second 2 are Kakoli's. In the order they appear, the interviewees are: a maid in India, a Maharaja, a journalist, a homeless man in New York, and a photojournalist.