Project Somnolence

As Project Somnolence, we are students of a dream school
whose curricula is nothing more and less than the sum
total state of human and more-than-human sleeping.

Hopefully and helpfully I have
built up a language in which to talk myself to sleep.
— Joanne Kyger, ‘The Test of Fantasy’ (1970)

Everyone sleeps and is affected by sleep, but we don’t all sleep the same. Sleep inequalities are associated with differences in class, gender and environmental factors. Project Somnolence attends to sleep through issues of sustainability, health and wellbeing. Our goals are to foster thoughtful, arts-led approaches which address the urgent and global crisis of sleep deprivation and disturbance.

Mobilising perspectives and methodologies from English, Creative Writing, Arts & Performance, Music, Psychology and Philosophy, we create original artworks, workshops and critical encounters which engage wider publics in sleep as a personal, political and environmental issue.

Our goals:

 Promote public awareness around the importance of sleep for health and wellbeing.
 Integrate arts-led methods into existing literature and theories of sleep.
 Create original works of sound and visual art, creative writing and critique that explore complex and interconnected issues around sleep, environment and health.
 Develop accessible and dynamic activities which galvanise public engagement with sleep ecologies.
 Work with community partners to bring issues of sleep to a wider audience.
 Amplify underrepresented and unexpected perspectives on sleep from a range of creative and critical sources.

Check out our Somnolent Playlist on Spotify!:

civic harvest 2024 title tbd