Nothing Is Lost But You Yourself

Nothing Is Lost But You Yourself began as an attempt to salvage a few of my dreams from oblivion and to explore the self when it is most unguarded and naked. As part of the project, I kept a dream journal and delved into the strange world open to us when we fall asleep, when time and our normal sense of self collapse and nothing is impossible.

The project began before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and was completed during the first lockdown. As the pandemic spread and affected us all, my dream world became more intense and memorable, as it did for many others. Indeed researchers have reported an upsurge in vivid, anxious and bizarre dreams. In this context, the project became a testament to how the pandemic affected the fabric of our dreams, our deep, instinctive, innermost selves. It was also a time when many of us, confined inside our homes, turned inwards and were faced with our darker inner selves, and a time when reality seemed to compete in surrealness with our dreams.

In the book dummy Nothing Is Lost But You Yourself I combine images with text from my dream journal, in an attempt to create a language that evokes the feeling of dreams.

“In dreams, nothing is lost. Childhood homes, the dead, lost toys, all appear with a vividness your waking mind could not achieve. Nothing is lost but you yourself, wanderer in a terrain where even the most familiar places aren’t quite themselves and open onto the impossible.” ~ Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide To Getting Lost.