Centring Horizontality: The Art and Ethos of Black Power Naps as a Response to Hostile Architecture, Defensive Design and The Sleep Gap

Black Power Naps is a sculptural installation, vibrational device and curatorial initiative that reclaims laziness and idleness as power. Departing from historical records that show that deliberate fragmentation of restorative sleep patterns were used to subjugate and extract labour from enslaved people, we have realised that this extraction has not stopped, it has only morphed. A state of constant fatigue is still used to break our will. This ‘sleep gap’ shows that there are front lines in our bedrooms as well as in the streets: deficit of sleep and lack of free time for some is the building block of the ‘free world.’ After learning who benefits most from restful sleep and down time, we are creating interactive surfaces for a playful approach to investigate and practise deliberate energetic repair.