Connectivity VI. The short draft animation titled ‘I am sleeping but not in my bed’ is my 6/12 weeks artist’s response to the residency at the mental health hospital carried virtually during the COVID Pandemic.
The work reflects the process of Being Treated. At work, at home, at hospitals, on the streets, we are treated in different ways. After a busy day, our bed is the safest place where we recover, share senseless hours, and go through daily encounters in our dreams. We trust our bed, and we allow our body to rest and hoover over that place of relaxation.
During the project time, in December-January, some participants missed a few sessions. The hospital staff explained their absence as follow:
‘She/He cannot get up from the bed….’
This fact provoked thoughts connected to treatments and mental outbreaks. I look for hospital room furniture and, in particular, the bed.
What is there unknown about the hospital bed? Mental health hospital… The bed in a room belongs to the system. In Russian, ‘Koika’ is a title for an institutional bed.
Patients in hospitals
students in colleges
soldiers in the army and others
cannot rely on this bed as a place of protection and safeness.
This sudden realisation connected to the state of freedom.
While working on a short study, I tried to evoke feelings of anxiety, unpredicted disturbances, and sleepless nights. Red colour, grey shadows, cables and pieces of equipment mixed into composition of convulsive restlessness.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQSF8EVI8FY/
