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Dream Salon Live from the Freud Museum London: Discussing and painting a dream.
Be part of a dream salon, a live art and science happening, where an attendee’s recent dream is discussed while the dream is painted live.
Be part of a dream salon, a live art and science happening, where a recent dream of an attendee is discussed while the dream is painted live onto pages taken from Freud’s book The Interpretation of Dreams. In this multisensory performance we will trace back the dream to the waking life concerns and experiences that created the dream, while watching the dream take visual form in the artwork. Uncannily relevant words of Freud will become part of the artwork as objets trouvés and found poetry. Join us in person at the Freud Museum London, or watch live streams at Noah’s Yard, Swansea or online.
The discussion of the dream will be moderated by Mark Blagrove, Professor of Psychology at Swansea University, using the group dream discussion method devised by psychoanalyst Montague Ullman. The method aims to map the dream onto the very recent emotional experiences of the dreamer. The dream painting will be performed live by Julia Lockheart, Professor of Creative Practice, Swansea College of Art, University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Her artworks incorporate the layout, formatting and words from the pages, and are part of the Dadaist and Surrealist movements of performance art inspired by dreams and by dream-like thinking. People who have had their dreams interpreted and drawn by this exciting art science collaboration have had ‘aha’ experiences when the links to waking life are discovered!
We thank the publisher Wordsworth Classics for permission to use pages taken from the 1st English translation of Sigmund Freud’s book The Interpretation of Dreams in the creation of the artworks.
For more information and artworks see DreamsID.com and The Science and Art of Dreaming (Routledge, 2023).
The event will be held in English. Online participation will also be possible at collaborating venues (Noah’s Yard, Swansea), on zoom and on Facebook Live. The event is part of the UK’s Festival of Social Science (https://festivalofsocialscience.com/) and is funded by and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the UK’s largest funder of social science research.
Details of event:
Hybrid both in person and online
All registrants will receive their link to join via ZOOM.
14.00 – 14.20: Welcome to the Freud Museum. Background to the event, including the science and art of dreaming.
14.20 – 14.25: Introduction to the Dream-Sharer, Ceramic Artist Abigail Schama.
14.25 – 15.45: The dream is recounted and discussed. During this discussion artist Julia Lockheart will paint her visual interpretation of it onto pages taken from Freud’s book The Interpretation of Dreams.
15.45 – 16.00: Break
16.00 – 16.15: Julia will show the finished painting to the dreamer. Whereas everyone else attending watched the painting being made, the dreamer did not see this. Julia will describe how she composed the painting and why she chose the two pages on which to paint the dream. All attendees can then discuss the painting.
16.15 – 17.00: Discussion about the event and about the science and art of dreaming in general.
17.00 Close
SPEAKERS
Mark Blagrove is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Sleep Laboratory at Swansea University.
Julia Lockheart is Professor of Creative Practice at Swansea College of Art, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
Abigail Schama is an artist and founder of The Mews Coachworks community. Her work is currently on show in Anna Freud’s room as part of the exhibition Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists.
The event will be chaired by the Freud Museum’s Education and Outreach Manager Emilia Raczkowska.
Buy the Book
The Science and Art of Dreaming by Mark Blagrove and Julia Lockheart is available on our online shop here.
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