Shary Boyle’s Unsettling Art Installation The Sleeper
What keeps you up at night?
An eerie human-like cardboard figure lies on a bed in the master bedroom of the Oakville Museum at Erchless Estate, eyes half-open, mouth baring teeth with paper hair that resembles spikes. Nearby, a table holds pencils and paper, with just one question: What keeps you up at night? Look closely at this effigy, embodying insomnia, and there is a slit for visitors to put the papers, detailing their fears, anxieties, and restless thoughts, into its hollow chest.
The one asking the question is Canadian artist Shary Boyle, whose installation, The Sleeper, was constructed for this year’s Ontario Culture Days with the theme “The Shape of Memory.” The Sleeper, a year-long project, was transported via sleeper car, in a bed next to Boyle’s own.
A temporary installation, The Sleeper is on display until November 2, then put to rest by a burial in the museum’s gardens, with all of the written worries tucked inside it and white flowers planted on top that will bloom next spring.
