Whispers in the night: a group portrait of haunted east Asians.
Chang Gao
Dreaming might be a unique human experience, and we remember certain dreams for a LONG time, and it is more likely that
they are nightmares and recurring dreams.
Due to Kineviz’s article posted in 2021: DreamCatcher: Deep Learning and Graph Analytics for the Dreamscape(2.),
people’s dreams share certain similarities. It is possible that people who belong to the same or similar cultural
backgrounds are more likely to explore the collective identity and situation that affects them in the dream patterns.
As a member of the east Asian community, I started my dream exploration journey: almost a hundred nightmares and
recurring dreams, demonstrated a bigger picture of East Asians’ nightmare stories: what is haunting us as a whole? What
are we secretly suppressing in our heart? I listen to the whispers in the night, and observe my community from their
dreams.
Book in a book: the dictionary of haunted east Asians
I put all the nightmares collected in a little “secret dictionary” and put it in my thesis book.
The fading text: Just like dreams don’t have a beginning or an end, the text slowly fades in, then fades out. Just like
a dream.
The clock
In the second most popular dreams: dreams about school life, I made these artifacts that trigger people’s fear towards school life.
The Test
Look at the exam paper and the answer sheet, do they make you quiver? In all of the dreams about exams, which is the most scary one?
The Test (2)
The dinner table
In the most popular nightmares among east Asians, which is always about families, most stories remind me of a family dinner table: where conversations happen, tears drop in the bowl, decisions are made. Where love exists, silence exists too.
I miss you, I hate you.
Sometimes the relationships between east Asian families are tangled with love, tears, and confusions. The ignored phone calls from the parents, the bad dreams about losing family members, the unrevealed secrets…when you have a complicated relationship with your family, you will find out you miss them sometimes, but also tangles with a little hatred.