23rd Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Artistic
Sleep Performance

Sleep is a series of performances that take shape in the borderland between wakefulness and dream — a space where the body still exists, yet consciousness has already departed. Here, the body is not an instrument of expression, but the very site of the event — a living matter oscillating between earth, light, and memory. The movements are slow, repetitive, and uncertain — as if the body is trying to recall a forgotten dream. Light shifts between visibility and obscurity; sounds blur, and moments fold inward upon themselves. In this world, time loses its linearity and turns into an endless cycle. Sleep is an attempt to confront the unconscious through the body — to explore what the body sees, hears, and becomes when awareness falls silent. This performance moves between silence and sound, between presence and fading, between life and dream.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 01.2025
Date Uploaded: 10.2025
Photo Location: Karaj, Iran
Copyright: © Morteza Rashid