Mita Solanky – Sleep Walks

Autumn, a time for rest and restoration, a time to rot and enrich. The time of year when nature is slowing down in preparation for winter. As the leaves halt their work, chlorophyll which makes leaves appear green is no longer produced, thus revealing the underlying yellow and red pigments. Autumn is a time to stop and to rest. As we take a pause, we may happen upon solutions to problems or arrive at realisations that we would not have made through hours of focussed endeavour.

The modern world increasingly demands that we are always available, always switched on. We are held in continual states of alert, and rarely find opportunity to switch-off and find extended restful periods, sometimes even to sleep. 

In sleep we are at our most vulnerable, yet without it we are rendered powerless. Sleep is a journey which restores our bodies and enriches our minds. Sleep offers freedom from a constantly engaged state, where we enter into another state, free from even the awareness of our own bodies. In sleep we dissolve into darkness, just as leaves decay into The Earth.

The above image ‘sleep walks’ was created during a two-month residency at Stiwdio Maelor in rural north Wales during the autumn of 2015.

Find Mita here: mitasolanky.org