“Awakeness” is an installation about insomnia, about the pain of being continuously awake. As the material of my work I have used pictures of people cut out from newspapers and magazines. I have drawn black circles round their eyes and glued the pictures on a transparent plastic curtain hung form the ceiling of the gallery. The plastic coat of the pictures and the dim transparency of the curtain refer to the weakened perception of an insomniac, to the feeling of being as if inside a bubble.
In the installation I draw a parallel between a sleeping disorder and the information flood of media. They both can make the surrounding reality seem extremely chaotic and eventually turn one numb to it. Newspapers come out every day and the headlines keep repeating themselves. Even the pictures appear to be the same day after day. I have drawn black circles round the eyes of Tom Cruise as well as a lady who has lost her home and family in an earth quake, who both can be found laying in the paper recycling bin, forgotten, when today’s paper comes out. In my installation I’m criticizing the cruel temporarity of news and cursing the unending tiredness and numbness caused by insomnia.
Thanks to Oskar Öflunds Foundation
More information: 040-8227495/Leena Virtanen
