Dream Wide Awake is an immersive installation and sleep concert in the Holy Family Church in Rotterdam Noord. The project is a collaboration between visual artist Bambí Benkö, music producer Nikos ten Hoedt (Pelagic Ambient) and artist and church administrator Ferry Chrispijn.

The title is inspired by Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey — a book and manifesto in which the African-American activist advocates rest as an act of resistance, in a society focused on constant production and acceleration. Dream Wide Awake invites visitors to consciously slow down and make room for dreams as a form of recovery.

The church space is transformed with large-scale, inflatable light sculptures made of transparent and colorful foil, which float through the space like enlarged jellyfish. The sculptures enter into a visual dialogue with the architecture of the church: the columns, the vault, the stained glass.

Visitors can retreat to camping beds, hammocks or a mattress they brought with them. From the evening until the early morning, a carefully composed music program with DJ sets and live ambient performances will sound — in which water, in all its soothing forms, is a recurring element.

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