Apocalypse Dream (Cold War)

Megan Whitmarsh
Apocalyptic Dreams (Cold War), 2016
Embroidery thread, marker, cotton
Courtesy of the artist

In 1995 Megan Whitmarsh began having dreams of an apocalypse. “I write them down immediately upon waking. Each one is vivid and feels devastating,“ she remembers. “I was a child in the 1980s during the Cold War and my mother was very active in the peace and nuclear disarmament movement, twice being jailed for civil disobedience. My mom told me she decided to go to jail over this because of a dream she had about the aftermath of nuclear war and my little brother. Maybe this led to my dreams or maybe it is just a collective shadow of fear that visits me. Apocalypse means: to uncover.” Recreated, years later, in fabric, the dream memories became part of the world she creates through her art, one in which the violent clamor of contemporary reality is infused with the possibility of supernatural events and magic.
(DKS)