Blaide Lallemand & Hilary Cuerden-Clifford
Screen translation by Christopher Fulham.
Blaide Lallemand is a Canberra based artist who mainly works in performance and interactive installations. She has collaborated with Hilary Cuerden-Clifford, to create Journey to Morning.
Hilary Cuerden-Clifford is a keen photographer who has exhibited in Canberra and Braidwood.
Christopher Fulham is a new media artist based in Canberra and is working with Blaide and Hilary to translate the Journey to Morning photographs into moving images for the mobile screen.
Journey to Morning
In sleep, our movements are no longer directed by our conscious selves; more fundamental body rhythms are revealed. Something deeper in the nature of the person, other truths are brought to the surface.
For the past three years, Blaide and Hilary have been working on photographing people of various ages and cultural backgrounds in the state of sleep. The exposures last between 20 and 30 minutes, using black and white film, with the camera placed directly over the subject. For each session, the photographs attempt to cover a night’s sleep.
The viewer is hovering, looking down on the sleeper, occupying a position not normal in life. The sleeper is unclothed but not "naked". Sleep gives a sense of self-possession. The sleeper is within themselves, going through their own night-world.
Blaide and Hilary are looking at a common thread of human existence, cutting across age, gender and cultural background. The work relates to personal and collective experience (a shared experience) and has an emotional link to the common human condition. Sleep is a state that allows us to be absent and present at the same time. In this circumstance the sleeper is intensely vulnerable, and simultaneously trusting of the unique situation, enabling the documentation of their journey.