The personal project “Under the Cover of Sleep“ includes paintings and graphic works, ceramics, objects and installations. The project is based on the experience of documenting the dreams of a group of people unfamiliar to the artist during February 2022. Serafima views the dream space as a metaphorical labyrinth, consisting of several levels and populated by different images and visions. Following the main character,
the viewer makes his endless journey through himself. Exploring other people's dreams and transforming them into visual images, the artist identifies three categories among them: disturbing and restless; scary and traumatic; resourceful and inspiring hope for rebirth. The exhibition “Under the Cover of Sleep“ follows this logic and is built on a three- part principle.
In the first part, the viewer meets the beast, which becomes his guide and companion through the world of dreams reconstructed by Serafima Sazhina. The latter is built on the principle of a labyrinth, which is a metaphor for the cycles of a person’s life path, as well as the structure of the dream itself. It consists of different adjacent but autonomous spaces, and the viewer is offered the opportunity to try to know himself, remember personal experience and the experience of the collective unconscious, and also learn to overcome his own fears.
The second part of the exhibition is devoted to the theme of fear and trauma, considered through the metaphorical image of the shadow as the other side of the world. In this part, the artist demonstrates an inverted world, inhabited by shadows instead of people.
In the third part of the exhibition, the viewer is greeted by a new hero — Green George. This character of the legend is the archetype of the male essence, the powerful initiator, whose body is the wild nature itself, the embodiment of vitality and fertility, harmonious coexistence with human beings.