Dämmerschlaf

Our first exhibition for 2016, Dämmerschlaf features new, site-specific work commissioned from three of the inaugural Artspace One Year Studio Artists: Nick Dorey, Mikala Dwyer and Clare Milledge. The studios are a key part of the ecology of Artspace, and as we welcome a new cohort of studio artists for 2016, Dämmerschlaf teases out the relationship between the sites of production and presentation as we look to further engage with the Gunnery building not merely as a container for activity but as an active participant in programming.

The German word Dämmerschlaf is the etymological root for the English ‘twilight sleep’, which describes a state induced by a combination of analgesia and amnesia. Here twilight sleep encompasses processes of dreaming, interpretation and translation that occur in and between the studio and the gallery, and that are central to artistic practice from the inception of an idea to its realisation. Dämmerschlaf highlights the thresholds and states of consciousness that can be explored through creative practice and ideas around the supernatural, the occult, alternate spiritualities and different ways of perceiving reality.

Having witnessed certain overlapping currents in each of the artists’ individual practices over the past year – drawing on the symbolism and energy of objects along with deep relationships to philosophy, alchemy, spirituality and poetry – Dämmerschlaf‘s intention is to foreground what takes place behind the often-closed doors of the studio and provide a space for evolution and the continuation of ideas with each other and with audiences. Throughout the month of January the artists transplanted their working environments from studio to gallery, creating an evolving exhibition in-situ that has taken root and germinated, in keeping with their methodologies which all engage in processes of transformation and growth. This life cycle will extend throughout the exhibition period, with the artists continuing to make work in a designated space within the exhibition, visible to audiences.

Curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor and Talia Linz