Sleepwalker

We are all used to seeing the odd mattress lying in parkland or propped against a charity bin. They are often disposed of carelessly or with little consideration for the intimacy that the mattress once shared with the body. This sight often seems incongruous to me. In part this is because the mattresses is a reminder of the body that is now absent. It is also because the act of sleeping that the mattress affords is not generally for public viewing but instead a gesture of unguarded privacy and domesticity. The shift in meaning that surrounds the mattress is perhaps what sparks my curiosity. Objects that once cushioned the figure in repose now lie discarded as waste, not even suitable for recycling. Their value can change, quite literally, overnight from a means of good sleep to a blight on suburban appearances. To encounter mattresses as ‘waste’ is even more engaging when it occurs on a greater scale. Sleepwalker is a photographic exploration of my experience with place, trace and waste as it occurs in a site I call ‘Mattress Mountain’. I have intentionally sought to capture the ambiguity of these objects, and more broadly of waste itself, by enfolding the prettiness of the pattern and the mattresse’s abject state. As such, discoloured fabrics and padded stitching mingles with tears and stains.