Eight Somnambulists

When I was a little girl, my friend and I would close our eyes and stretch our arms forward. In this state, we walked around the room, spellbound. This is how somnambulists or sleepwalkers are depicted in visual culture. The image of a person with bare feet and arms stretched forward became iconic.

What does somnambulism sound like? I asked each participant in the project, trying to go beyond the usual patterns of perception. At first glance, this question seemed to act as an amplifier of the strange phenomenon, but on the contrary, it helped them to open up more broadly.

I show somnambulism through the sensual experience of those who sleepwalked. For the creation of portraits, I chose the bedrooms of the heroines and heroes. Therefore, I mark the contrast between the stereotypical and documentary images of the somnambulist.

Including metaphors in the project’s fabric helps to immerse into the world of dreams. Somnambulism is between dream and reality. Its in-between state leads me to believe that its nature is like the medium of photography. I emphasize the relationship between the two through technical distortions of images. And I come closer to the intermediate state of the somnambulist at the moment of dreaming.