Alyss Campbell: Where am I safe if not here?

I have suffered from sleep paralysis from an early age. During an episode of sleep paralysis, I am fully conscious but unable to move, and I also experience hallucinations
of creatures. These experiences have induced a fear and anxiety around sleep - which is, for others, usually a restful event.

I have used textiles as a means of communicating this fear around sleep and the bed; that sleep and rest start off as seemingly safe and restful but gradually builds into anxiety. The quilt is made from the bedsheets I slept in as a child and the images screenprinted on the bottom are drawings of some of the creatures that I see during an episode. I have then distressed the sheets in a number ol ways, such as burning with a lighter and soldering iron, and staining the sheets with a liquid solution of rust.

I am a second-year textiles student studying at Dunedin School of Art