SOMNIUM for Loemis Festival 2017

SOMNIUM is a beast who feeds on our dreams. Leda Farrow is a visual artist and Pirate & Queen are a creative production house. Together they are bringing SOMNIUM into the world as part of a Solstice festival called L?emis.

Leda is building SOMNIUM for display in a free exhibition in the Wellington Museum from mid-May to mid-June. As a visitor you will encounter a large-scale creature with benign and malevolent qualities. You will be invited to contemplate the four L?emis 'humours' or personalities, that surround SOMNIUM, and decide which one you are at that moment. You will then be invited to sit at the accompanying writing desk (each desk designed to suit each personality) to write down your darkest fears, your secret aspirations, and feed them into SOMNIUM's ravenous belly.

Leda will be leading two mask-making workshops while SOMNIUM is at the Museum. Everyone is welcome to join in to create a mask that you can use in the final RITUAL, when we take SOMNIUM from the Museum and to the Wellington lagoon on the waterfront where he will be set alight...

RITUAL happens on 21 June (the Solstice). It is a parade with music and costume marking the end of SOMNIUM's lifetime. At 5.30pm on 21 June SOMNIUM is uplifted from the Museum and paraded down the waterfront to the final resting place where fire will transform him, and his belly full of dreams. A ritual burning on the Wellington lagoon signals the end of the L?emis Festival and the liberation of the hundreds of confessions that SOMNIUM devoured from us all.

SOMNIUM is created by Leda and helpers as it is a large undertaking. The exhibition and RITUAL is designed by Pirate & Queen (directors of L?emis festival). Your contributions go to materials, Leda's talent and time, and musicians for RITUAL. By supporting SOMNIUM you're helping keep this essential part of L?emis free for all.