On the wall to the right, six quick sketches are displayed — visual fragments documented immediately upon waking. One recurring image is of a decommissioned fountain from an unknown place that has reappeared in the courtyard of the waterworks in my hometown, where my grandfather used to work. This is one of several locations I revisit in dreams.

Last autumn, while developing an idea for a group exhibition (which I eventually did not participate in), I began reflecting on the idea of escape — specifically, the nocturnal escape into dreams as a departure from waking life. This became the beginning of a long-term investigation. The non-narrative realm of night dreaming, usually devoid of time and physics, continuously searches for exits, answers, or emotional states we long for. In dreams, one is always moving — either toward something or away from something.

Over time, I noticed that certain dreams repeat — or rather, that I return to particular locations with striking emotional accuracy. The events or appearances may vary, but there is a deep certainty of recognition. Each of these places evokes a distinct atmosphere — entirely authentic and uniquely belonging to that space as a phenomenon.

My interest in the architecture of loneliness, the philosophy of hope as an infinite source of healing, led me to focus specifically on these recurring spaces — institutions — that I revisit in night dreams. I began cataloguing them: a waterworks facility enclosed by a fence, with a working fountain inside; an abandoned school with classrooms and corridors no longer in use; a derelict sugar factory; an abandoned military hospital with labyrinths and trials inside; a historical museum sealed beneath the foundations of a house…

In this research, I move between abandoned, active, and semi-visible institutions — not to examine their function, but to uncover what is missing. What Slavoj Žižek describes as the mechanism of desire — a lack that structures experience — becomes especially apparent within dream spaces, where everything is partially present, distorted, or stripped of purpose. The museum, the sugar factory, the military hospital, the waterworks, the school — these are not merely places. They are structures of longing: architectures of absence.

The waterworks courtyard and its fountain were the first in-dream location I documented. To document a dream is to inhabit a state of transition — a threshold. The medium of drawing is not essential in itself, but rather a means of attempting to capture fleeting images and sensations, translating them into the dimension of wakefulness. Charcoal and ink assist me in this — ideal tools for documenting the elusive, the implicit, and the immaterial, extracting from the virtual environment of consciousness and attempting to recreate the inherent qualities of these places.

Unlike the other locations in the series, the waterworks is not in decay. It functions. Moreover, the fountain in its courtyard still runs. But the entire complex is enclosed by a fence — and that, precisely, is the key to its structure of desire.

The fountain is surplus. It serves no essential function. It is an aesthetic addition. In Lacanian terms, it is the object of desire made external — but fenced off. This is not a ruin, not a loss, but a mechanism of fantasy. We see the object self-sustaining, operating without us. We are excluded. The desire it generates stems from that exclusion: it exists, but not for me.

Žižek would call this fetishistic disavowal: we see reality, but believe in something else. The fountain becomes an imaginary compensation — a watery luxury persisting despite the broader sense of decline. The fence prevents us from participating in its enjoyment. We remain observers of someone else’s symbolic fullness.

Translucent fountains grow across the windows, catching light as it moves from outside in. These fragile structures, made of charcoal dust, form a temporary illusion of water and presence. For me, the fountain is a symbol of life’s resource: something vital, longed for, especially in times of turbulence. This spatial intervention serves as a modest introduction to a more extensive work-in-progress.

Anna Kakhiani
researching the institutions we revisit in dreams
25.07.25