Art workshop explores our relationship with sleep

Members of the public are being invited to share their experiences of sleep, and find out more about the experiences of others, during an art workshop and exhibition next month.

The Reimagining Sleep Café is being held as part of the Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities.

The event will include the launch of an online exhibition, featuring work on the themes of sleep and parenting, sleep and aging, and sleep and menopause, all produced during workshops held earlier this year.

The workshops past and present, and exhibition, all form part of the Understanding and Reimagining Sleep and Its Disorders project, organised by sleep researcher Dr Diletta De Cristofaro of Northumbria University in partnership with The Sleep Charity, and funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Visitors to the Reimagining Sleep Café will be invited to explore the online exhibition curated by artist Chiara Dellerba, as well as contributing to it themselves.

Dr De Cristofaro said: “Reimagining Sleep is an interactive exhibition which is accompanied by toolkits that people can download and use to engage with their sleep through creativity. If they'd like, people can then upload their creative responses to the toolkits' prompts on the website and they will be added to the exhibition.”

Those attending the event in person will work with Dr Diletta De Cristofaro and artist Chiara Dellerba to discuss the artistic strategies behind the exhibition and how it contributes to research into better sleep.

There will then be an opportunity to explore how our bodies and minds react to sounds and, through creative writing and mark-making activities, to develop visual responses to meditative soundscapes.

These responses can then be uploaded to the exhibition, enriching its collaborative nature and the variety of voices represented.

The Reimagining Sleep Café will take place from 2pm to 4pm on Saturday 18 November, at The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle. Places are free – find out more and book your place here.

Northumbria University has been involved in the Being Human Festival for a number of years, and last year was one of six festival hubs hosting events across the UK.

Each year the festival is based on a theme, with Rhyme and Reason the theme for 2023.