A garden in the shape of dreams

Christopher is dressed in a white shirt and wears a crown made of artificial turf (grass). He is holding a botanical book with a picture of the plant known as Catharanthus Roseus that used to be his best friend as a child. A plant that heals the body and soul.
Christopher is dressed in a white shirt and wears a crown made of artificial turf (grass). He is holding a botanical book with a picture of the plant known as Catharanthus Roseus that used to be his best friend as a child. A plant that heals the body and soul.
Christopher's hands gesture over a Sukia figure, an indigenous 800-year-old shamanic sculpture made of volcanic rock. In the background a Catholic crucifix with a purple background. Pain and colonization inhabit the body.
Christopher’s hands gesture over a Sukia figure, an indigenous 800-year-old shamanic sculpture made of volcanic rock. In the background a Catholic crucifix with a purple background. Pain and colonization inhabit the body.
Christopher hugs a coat made of artificial turf (grass) and conjures up the image of a raging mountain. His facial expression is intense and his forehead is sweating.
Christopher hugs a coat made of artificial turf (grass) and conjures up the image of a raging mountain. His facial expression is intense and his forehead is sweating.
With the sky and the sea in his hands. Christopher holds up a blue cotton blanket and throws it hard back.
With the sky and the sea in his hands. Christopher holds up a blue cotton blanket and throws it hard back.

A Garden in the Shape of Dreams meditates on Paracosm, a persistent evocation of an imagined place, inhabited by imaginary people or beings. A complex response to times of hardship and trauma in childhood.

My ancestral memory takes me back 30 years ago, a time when a calamitous earthquake destroyed a beautiful garden where my imaginary friend and I used to play.

A Garden in the Shape of Dreams is part of the series “Memories of a disabled child: the real, the imaginary and the misunderstood”.

COSTUME DESCRIPTION

Christopher’s costume changes during the performance. He wears traditional whirling dervish clothes, a Semazen dress made of white robes to create fascinating spinning patterns, a Mevlana hat made of camel hair and handmade leather black shoes. He also wears an artificial turf (grass) crown, a blue cotton blanket and a Hudson Bay blanket (a beige blanket with green, red, yellow and blue lines).

INSTALLATION DESCRIPTION

Christopher organizes the space with different boxes containing vintage postcards from Limón, the Caribbean zone of Costa Rica, as well as plastic dolls, a crucifix, maps, botanical antique prints, photographs of an earthquake, botany books and a Sukia, a small shaman squatting indigenous figure.

CREDITS

  • Photography: Kathryn Butler Photography . Courtesy of Performance Mix Festival
  • Costume Design: Branden Charles Wallace and Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez
  • Live Audio Description: Michelle Mantione