FRAGMENTED NIGHTS
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Sleep determines who I am. My whole day, my mood and my health depend on my sleep. In a way, it controls me. Sleep, or rather lack of sleep, has become the enemy.
Insomnia is one of the most common mental disorders, and sleep is one of the most important components of our physical and mental health and quality of life.
I have developed a method to deal with frustration and fatigue during the day after a sleepless night. I have summarised my own story with insomnia, the strategy and the drawings in a book. It is a handbook for other people affected by fatigue and an autobiographical story that shows how I dealt with this phase of my life.
“What I do to help myself is breaking the thinking patterns. Also guard my time, do what feels good to me. Also breathing exercises help and I have a list of other things. It is good to have different methods because sometimes a method which always worked starts to not work anymore”
“Then I would stay in bed in a half awake and half dreaming state and I would not get over the threshold where you fall asleep”
“The times when it was very bad, I felt like I am dissolving from within”
– Insomnia Experience Experts
PROCESS
I started with my personal story and from a perhaps selfish perspective. I wanted to get more information about insomnia, especially about treatment, and find my personal closure.
I later realised that I actually wanted to find connection. Dealing with insomnia alone made me very lonely, but it led me to this project. It forced me to do what I love doing the most, which is drawing and crafting intuitively. Not for my studies or to impress anyone, but to give myself pleasure.
I have found a connection. I spoke to sleep researchers and people who have experience with insomnia. I no longer felt alone.
I archived my process by filming and recording it, and found connection and inspiration in many artworks where artists were also using art as a coping strategy. I continued drawing and decided to choose a book as a medium to share this project.
My next step is to make my work public and to deepen and multiply the connections.
DRAWING AS A COPING METHOD
Take a piece of paper. The size or colour doesn’t matter. It depends on how much time you want to spend on it.
Take a pencil or a brush and acrylic paints, whatever you have at home and feels good.
Start drawing. It can be circles, stripes, squares. You’ll notice what you like. You can also look around and take inspiration from your surroundings.
Drawing should be easy and not too much effort.
Trust the process and fill the whole page.
You can do it in silence, listening to music or a podcast or talking to someone. You can do it anywhere.
This is about you.
What do you feel?
Project details
- Year
- 2024
- Programme
- Bachelor – Transformation Design
- Practices
- Autonomous Practices
- Minor
- Hacking