We are innocent when we sleep

Concept

-2018-

The work »We are innocent when we sleep« is a result of an invitation from the theatre Schaubühne in Berlin to create a poster campaign with all members of their ensemble to advertise the upcoming season. Jankowski involved all actors in a perfidious game in which each actor played consecutively an active as well as a passive role. He was attracted by pictures of »sleeping pranks« and their disturbing but also humorous appeal that deals with the social codes of communities and their loss of inhibitions. Therefore, Jankowski had the actors from the ensemble paint and »stage« their colleagues while those played at and sometimes even were asleep. As is usual with such pranks, the people sleeping can’t be sure how, by whom and by how many they have been »staged«.
The resulting portraits and full-body shots reveal the ensemble in unfamiliar, even disconcerting ways, constantly oscillating between the dichotomies of excess/calculation, trust/subjection, internal/external, glee/compassion and human being/object. The photographs are complemented by quotes from the ensemble members which capture their sensations and perceptions during the process. To capture these moments, Jankowski interviewed the actors – still with their eyes closed – in the moment of awakening.

Photographs
33 photographs, archival inkjet print on baryta paper, each 120 x 95 cm