In 1975, photographer Ted Spagna (1943–1989) began his career-defining project that would revolutionize the artistic interpretation and even scientific understanding of sleep. Using a time-lapse camera, Spagna photographed a variety of sleeping subjects for an entire night. The results, now known as “sleep portraiture,” provided a unique bird’s eye perspective of his subjects’ movements, patterns, and interactions. Today, a collection of Spagna’s photographs and papers resides at the Ransom Center.
In 2009, Ron Eldridge and Delia Bonfilio, nephew and goddaughter of Spagna, formed the Ted Spagna Project. Aspiring to “awaken his work and carry it on,” Eldridge and Bonfilio launched a variety of programs highlighting Spagna and his work, including the recently published collection of his photographs titled SLEEP.
Rizzoli Publishing describes SLEEP as “an intimate, voyeuristic exploration into the private landscape of the unconscious from the Muybridge of sleep.” The full-color coffee-table book features Spagna’s photographs of children, adults, couples, and families exposed in the private act of sleeping. With text by psychiatrist Allan Hobson and additional photographs by Mary Ellen Mark, SLEEP has revived Spagna’s project alongside current information and innovation.
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