Sleep Paralysis

No Place To Go Installation

NP2G Artist Statement: This installation piece is a collaboration between Grace Cooper and Chrissy Espinoza consisting of a bedroom scene combining video, sculptural, and performance elements. We hope to exhibit the emotions and the internal struggle happening within the stillness of an ordinary bedroom.

With this project we’ll delve into our shared experiences with sleep paralysis and demonstrate our visual representation of it playing out in accordance to our comparative experiences and the accounts of many others. We will be exploring concepts of subjugation, estrangement and fear that can be experienced even within the safety of a seemingly peaceful and familiar environment. We will be focusing on the supernatural effects from sleep paralysis. An alarming number of sufferers observe a similar dark or demonic entity that suppresses one’s ability to breath by perching upon their chest or pinning them down. The video projection will be shot and directed by Chrissy Espinoza and feature Grace Cooper performing “the spirit” or the conscious attempting to escape the body (the bedridden sculpture). Gina Pugliese will appear in a projection over the body in the form of the classical sleep paralysis demon. Inspired by the iconic incubus from Henry Fuseli’s 1781 oil painting “The Nightmare.”

The feeling of being trapped is terrible. Feeling helpless is terrible. We hope our piece will speak to any persons that have ever felt those feelings even if they have not themselves suffered from sleep paralysis. We hope it will speak to anyone who has ever been restricted to the isolation of hiding their true selves or concealed themselves sensing a potentially hostile atmosphere. To anyone that has been stranded in a time and place that in one reality seems familiar and innocuous, yet in another is oppressive and dangerous. To anyone that’s felt trapped in their own body. To anyone who’s felt watched, spied on or viewed as a curiosity.

Artists: Grace Cooper & Chrissy Espinoza

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