The time of dreaming the world awake by Yvette Monahan

The Time of Dreaming the World Awake is a portrait of a place, a landscape of possibility.

This photographic body of work is based in a small region in Southern France. I was drawn there initially by the story of Bugarach, the ‘magic’ mountain. Bugarach was somehow connected to a Mayan prophecy which indicated that the world as we know it, would end on December 21st, 2012. The prophecy claimed that this date would mark the beginning of a new era for humanity, a new and sublime future. Bugarach was to be the first bastion of this modern Arcadia.

I felt that the landscape around Bugarach had a palpable charge and I was compelled to continuously return to photograph it throughout 2012. This idea of a new ideal destiny was appealing as it offered a sense of possibility.It allowed an allegorical landscape full of portents to exist, one that was beyond the visual reality.

In order to access the intangible within the landscape, I engaged my intuition, photographing people and places only when I felt moved to. I used this method of visual enquiry to try and understand the existential nature of this place.

Nothing happened that December, which was to be expected. Despite this, I realised how important it was for me to believe in the possibility of an idyll, even if it only existed in my mind.

29.9 cm23.5 cm1.2 cm