Made in collaboration with Hilary Cuerden-Clifford
Artist statement
In sleep, our movements are no longer directed by our conscious selves, other rhythms come into play, surfacing an essence of our being.
Since 2003, Blaide and Hilary have been photographing people of various ages, gender and cultural backgrounds in the state of sleep. These are explorative portraits, taken in the studio, where the person is left alone to sleep naked. Removed of all their material possessions and in a neutral space the viewers’ attention is focused on the body language of the subject, so gaining an insight into how they carry themselves through life.
Using black and while film, half hour exposures with the camera placed directly over the subject, the photographs map their uninhibited movements They are no longer aware of the photographer as the image is building up, they are not consciously reacting to the camera and we are not seeing them frozen in time but travelling through it.
The sleepers are both vulnerable and unassailable, in their own worlds and yet visible to the viewers. Sleep is an experience all humans share, even though it is when we are asleep that we are perhaps most ourselves, most unique.
These animations portray the sleepers singularly and in groups hovering in a womb of blackness, juxtaposing notions of the individual with the collective. Â Average duration 9 minutes.