Sleep paralysis
Sleep paralysis episodes are among the most terrifying or relaxing experiences that can happen to you. When your brain wakes before your body, you are left in a cage you don’t control, feeling what it means to be impotent against your urge to exert control on your flesh.
Influenced by Henry Fuseli’s “The Nightmare” (1781), Sasha Katz explores the liminal time of when the mind perceives hallucinations, creatures and objects that cannot be detected when it is completely awake, with the series “Sleep Paralysis”.
Lit by a mystical spotlight, white bodies are found half-asleep in dramatic poses, as if they were battling with the minds trying to control them in a way that reminds the “Dying Slave” (1513-1516) by Michelangelo. Black cats, which may be real or not, intertwine with the flesh of the models, becoming a companion that brings uncomfortableness and disquietude.
Exhibited at
︎︎︎Singularity Show at Decentral Art Pavilion during Venice Art Biennale, curated and organized by Florencia S.M. Brück, Javier Krasuk, Diego Lijtmaer and Simone Furian,
2022