My collaboration with Sam has inspired me to make an artwork that depicts sleeping and dreams ‘spilling’ over into real life. Sam is a sleep scientist who is researching isolated REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder (iRBD) which is a rare disorder that is developed mostly in elderly people and has a strong correlation to developing other brain diseases such as Parkinson’s and dementia.

iRBD is a condition that causes people to physically act out their dreams during REM sleep. It is different from sleep walking, as sleep walking occurs during deep sleep and you are able to walk around. In REM sleep this does not occur, and you may wake easily. People with iRBD often have violent movements during sleep which may cause injury to themselves or others, and decreased quality of rest.

My artwork is a metaphor for dreams spilling out into the waking world, like what occurs during iRBD. I have used contrasting mediums of graphite pencil and colourful markers to accentuate the quietness of sleep and other worldliness of dreams. The clouds are to represent peacefulness of the night and the softness of a bed. My work is a self-portrait and although I’m not old enough to develop this disease, dreaming and sleep are important to me and I am intrigued by Sam’s research.

I’ve really enjoyed the connections I’ve made through CoLab, the people I’ve met, learning about other scientist’s research and other student’s artist interpretations.

I want people to see the contrast between the realism of my portrait compared to the ‘2D’ colourful markers, as an analogy for the difference between our sleeping bodies and the dreams that may spill out from within.