DreamEater at the Gates

A large dream-eater creature stomps through a forest of pages. Tracing paper and mesh fabric pasted together hang long from the roof, giving the impression of huge snowy windchimes, or trees for the creature to prowl through. Dreams pour and pop out of these pages and bring to life the ‘Dreampocalypse.’The Dreampocalypse runs riot through the pages of the ‘DREAMS’ issue of Early Harvest, an annual publication written and edited by children for children. Artist Jen Tran paired with us  to create a window installation inspired by Early Harvest 7  in our Footscray-based creative space.Tran challenged herself to use recycled material. The work is predominantly tracing paper, mesh fabric, LED lights, calligraphy ink, and glue. Tran explains the intent of this material’s form was to make a world where the children’s stories are ‘coming out from the pages into reality’.Her inspiration was the dreams weaved through Early Harvest 7 and how these would look as a 3D world.The ‘One Night In Footscray’ on 23 November 2018 will really see this world come to life; Tran will perform stories from the publication in the window display accompanied by an original soundscape and live reading for each story.A designer and Community Engagement Practitioner, Tran has worked on many projects across Melbourne, including a previous window-installation for 100 Story Building. She describes this year’s installation as a way of ‘combining my dreams and (the writers and editor’s dreams) together in the one space.’