April - June ’21 – SLEEP MODE Kicks Off

A year after the pandemic began, we continued to be challenged in how we could engage with our community for our annual Exhibition & Program Series. For a year, instead of planning gatherings and wayfinding throughout the new building, we planned gatherings and found our way within the perimeters of possibility that the pandemic allowed (could remove). In this temporary season of limitation, we focused on using our resources creatively, so that we would not just get through the pandemic, but build new stores of ideas, information, understanding, and imagination. In thinking about all we experienced over the previous year, we sought to describe the world as “awakening” into spring’s warmth, after a time of “sleeping” in winter’s desolation. So, it was in this season of tentative but hopeful transition, we invited our community to experience virtually SLEEP MODE: a virtual exhibition, related events, and an invitation to dream. From April through June, we considered our relationship to sleep and dreams, states of being which encompass essential rest, but also intense – if often invisible – activity. Through SLEEP MODE, we explored the history of sleeping and dreaming, hypnotism and trance, hibernation and introspection, dormancy and expectation, and the crucial role of dreaming in times of struggle and social upheaval. Exhibition participants signed up for bi-weekly, curated emails with photos, audio essays, and prompts, enabling them to engage with the themes of the exhibition and participate offline, even outdoors, on their own. Additionally, we offered bi-weekly live, virtual Curator’s Conversations showcasing exhibition items from PPL’s Special Collections where our Research and Outreach Librarian Angela DiVeglia was joined by community members whose areas of interest matched the sleep-related themes.