The Sleep Institute
Brighton Matambo
M1
Parish Priests:
Tuliza Sindi, Muhammad Dawjee
Parish:
19 - The Act of Service
The bible reveals how a war took place in heaven, where Michael and his angels fought against Lucifer and his angels. Lucifer lost and he, with his angels, were thrown out of heaven. This war has since continued, with earth as the battleground for good against evil, and religion framing it as the war for souls and the war of worship.
In the context of that battle, the natural world exists as a proxy for the spiritual realm, with humans mainly asleep to this battle, and requiring a spiritual intervention to be awakened to this reality.
Susan Buck-Morss explains our sustained state of sleep by claiming that “phantasmagoria are the only media that shape lived perception and experience; they are a dream from which we need to wake...”
The work asks: “Can architecture, that renders asleep through the production of ritual patterns and habits, awaken people out of that sleep, and in the process awaken them to the greater supernatural forces at play?
The Sleep Institute is located where the church on Church Square once used to be, taking the place of the church in attempting to awaken the masses by first revealing the fascist layers of Church Square.