Dream Echoes and Nightmare Calls: Surfacing the Unconscious Through Comics with Yao Xiao

​Workshop Introduction

​This is a 2.5-hour workshop using the art of comics to explore the unconscious, arriving at unexpected stories.

​The more you try to grasp a dream, the more it slips away. The secret to capturing dreams and nightmares is not to mimic them, but to create an open condition where they can resurface in the conscious world. In order to interpret dreams as conduits for unspoken feelings and desires, one has to be less serious, more playful, to get past the rational mind that tells us what’s possible and impossible.

​Comics by definition is a game. It does not proclaim to be serious. The 2.5-hour workshop will connect you with surrealists and dadaists from the past to the present, through practices that free the creativity from deep within a person’s subconscious. Through drawing, free-association, and comics, let your mind open up for dreams and nightmares. Let the characters come into your world and tell you their secrets, have a deep dialogue with you, or simply play.

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​Structure:

​The workshop consists of several spontaneous drawing exercises, interspersed between mini lectures on automatic drawing, juxtaposition as a Dadaistic technique, comics as a genre. You will learn how to create a surrealist character of your own!

​Takeaway:

​Drawings from your unconscious, and a one-page comic. Materials and tools will be prepared by the organizer.

​*Cancellations made within 24 hours of the class are non-refundable.