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Omar Mismar

Sleep Doesn’t Travel Well, Dreams Must

Omar Mismar (b. 1986, Beirut, Lebanon) lives and works in Beirut.

Sleep Doesn’t Travel Well, Dreams Must is a towering column made of 60 stacked mattresses. From afar, they appear soft and precarious, suggesting the instability of refugee life where homes are constantly uprooted and reassembled in unfamiliar places; up close, each is revealed as a mosaic with floral patterns formed from small tesserae, or small cubical pieces of stone. Drawing on familiar scenes of global displacement, the work transforms a domestic object into a rigid structure that carries traces of movement and memory.

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Major support for the High Line Plinth is provided by members of the High Line Plinth Committee and contemporary art leaders committed to realizing major commissions and engaging in the public success of the Plinth. Learn more about the High Line Plinth Committee.


Renderings courtesy of the artist.