Non-human regeneration
Tangible utopias
Shared knowledge

MAXIDREAMS

participatory creation of an international colony of dreamers

Florence Doléac

Acteur

Florence Doléac is a free electron; eclectic, she intervenes in very diverse fields, blurring the lines and breaking the boundaries of the usual categories between art and design; she deploys a gentle critique of functionalism. Her proposals play with established codes in order to disrupt our habits of perception; she intercepts our gestures by pointing out their limits. The incongruity of the situations she provokes sends us back to our imagination, lightening an excessively restricted reality. Born in 1968 in Toulouse, she lives between Paris and Brittany/Finistère. Since 2004 she has been teaching in the Object Design department of the École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris.

Action

Maxidreams is an ongoing project-Action that results in the simultaneous installation in the wild of a series of “dream beds” in several countries around the world. Everyone is invited to become a member of the International Colony of Dreamers, by building their own bed. A participatory cartography summarises all the locations where the beds have been set up and the different species of trees chosen according to the geographical and meteorological situations specific to the locations. A mobile application, Maxidreams, already lists the locations, the images of the participants and a dream bank. It presents and relates the different stories of this new international colony of dreamers. This network will soon be linked to several ethno-psychiatrists and scientific research centres on sleep, where researchers are studying brain activity during dreams. Maxidreams orchestrates different experiments and knowledge about dreams in order to share and make the best use of this “visionary” material.

Project supported by the FNAGP
Maxidreams was inspired by the American author Maurice Sendak’s “Max and the Maximons”. It is a series of beds set in nature, conducive to the realisation of dreams. The beds are surrounded by four trees in the four corners, whose canopy forms a bed sky. These dream beds are installed in nature, in several countries; a cartography will synthesise all the locations of the beds in the world. Each installation is made with a different species of tree, chosen according to the geographical and meteorological situations specific to the location. Everyone is invited to become a member of the International Dreamers’ Colony by building their own bed.

A mobile application, Maxidreams, lists the locations, the images of the participants as well as a dream bank. It presents the different stories of this new international dreamers’ colony. Sleepers are asked to try to remember their dreams and to relate them. This network will itself soon be linked to several scientific research centres on sleep where researchers are studying brain activity during dreams, and various exchanges of ethno-psychiatrists. This experimental and international project is envisioned as a trilogy that associates volunteer participants with art, scientists and ethno-psychiatrists. Maxidreams orchestrates different experiments and knowledge about dreams in order to make the best use of this “visionary” material.

First bed installed
in the chapel of Gabriac / Cévennes,
summer 2018
Edition des lits de rêves de Florence Doléac: Keymouse
Logo: Petra Myzyk et Jean-François Moriceau
Photos: Joëlle Bachetta

Second bed installed
in Nègrepelisse / La cuisine, art and design centre,
summer 2019

In the “Dodocho”, Marchand de sable & Maxidreams, exhibition and work in the public space in Tarn-et-Garonne proposed by Florence Doléac, Curator of the “Dodocho” exhibition: Yvan Poulain, La cuisine, centre d’art et de design, Marie Delanoé and Sylvain Thédon, Calbet museum. The Maxidreams bed in Nègrepelisse is located on the island bordered by the Aveyron in a public park, open to the public, below the castle that houses the art centre. Maxidreams II invites the visitor to spend the night under the stars, between four fragrant lime trees. The sleeper is then free to write down his or her dreams on the online platform and document his or her summer night’s dreams on the web (www.maxidreams.net).