MARY-JEAN RICHARDSON

Insomnia embodies an intense sense of isolation. Detached from those sleeping nearby, it provides a platform upon which to encounter deep desires, fears and anxieties. For the insomniac, the time between dusk and dawn is not an adventurous dream-zone or a site for unconscious meandering. It is a phase that provokes a suspended state of solitude that brings acute awareness to the threshold between the bright distractions of everyday life and an incomprehensible and inevitable darkness or, as Elisabeth Bronfen refers to it ‘the abyss of non-existence’ . Provoked by silent, nocturnal conversations with one-self, it is a simple step to imagine a sense of no longer existing. The uninterrupted thinking of the insomniac gives occasion to contemplate the fragility of existence, to reflect upon the transition from living state to corpse. To possess a conscious awareness of our inevitable end is ‘inherently human’ - ‘death’ is ours alone.