Susan Grant

Night Journey is an on-going body of work examining the perceptual and psychological aspects of dreams, memory and the unconscious. The series consists of two complimentary forms; a suite of 35”x47” photographs and a room-size installation of 25, 4’x8’ murals printed on chiffon (see image #10) with sound recordings. There are currently 75 images in the series of a planned portfolio of 100. Using the shadow as metaphor, I create images that provide pictorial access to the unconscious and unexplainable experiences. These works oftentimes conjure up childhood imaginings, fairy tales and nightmares while deliberately portraying a sense of surprise and wonder. The shadow implies a reality without being real. It allows fabrication of a world and a narrative that occurs only in the photograph. Night Journey represents a collaboration of artistic and scientific inquiry into the nature of REM sleep and provides pictorial access to the subconscious. Research was conducted at the Southwestern Medical Center Sleep Laboratory with sleep scientist, Dr. John Herman. Using myself as subject, my descriptions of dreams were recorded in the laboratory while awakened from REM sleep on many occasions. These “awakenings” along with audio recordings provide vivid access to memory and the dream-state and serve as inspiration for the photographs. My interest in creating the work focuses on capturing unconscious visual memory as opposed to illustrating specific dreams. I work intuitively reading captured phrases to spontaneously create images that have similar narratives, emotions and gestures as in the recordings. To create the images, I photograph shadows of models and props in my studio using a 4x5 view camera with a digital Leaf back. I start by creating the sets, then invite models into the studio and intuitively direct them through a series of gestures and poses to finalize the narratives.