“Atlas of dreams” - A recent publication by artist member, Lydia Nakashima Degarrod

Map of Nightmares. Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, 2016

From the writer:

As part of the interdisciplinary project Atlas of Dreams, I created a series of artistic maps, that both show the places where 400 dreamers recounted their memorable dreams and also depict the emotional impact of these narratives in the grid of cities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Atlas of Dreams aims at uncovering the emotional life of cities. I present, from my perspective as both a visual artist and an ethnographer, how the embodied art practices of derivé and the Surrealist techniques of frottage contributed to recreate the dream process, as well as to the creation of a multimodal ethnography.

- Lydia Nakashima Degarrod

Lydia Nakashima Degarrod, PhD is both a visual artist and a cultural anthropologist who creates installations that blur the line between ethnography and art in order to convey experiences of extraordinary nature and address issues of social justice. Her latest work, Atlas of Dreams, unveils the invisible presence of dreams in the urban context. She has received awards for her work from the Wing Luke Memorial Museum of Art, Saint John’s University, and the Ministry of Culture of Chile. She has been an artist in residence at California State University at Chico, de Young Museum of Art, the Center for Art and Public Life at California College of the Arts, and Djerassi Artist Program.

The article is published as part of World Art Journal and is available to read online.