The Dream

• Photographer
  Ximena Bares
• Prizes
  Bronze in People/Self-Portrait

It was in the early hours of the morning and I had been laying awake for hours. As the night progresses, I enter in what I have dubbed the "4am mystique phase". That night I was reading about symbolism and the representation given to fish in different cultures and religions: well-being, fecundity, protection... These readings had a quick sedative effect so I turned off the light and visualised a large aquarium full of beautiful goldfish so I fell into a peaceful sleep. Next morning I decided to make my own tribute to those mysterious beings and the result is the trilogy I present below.

Photography is a practice that allows me to play as if I were an eight-year-old with all the toys in the world within my reach. In that constant and inevitable play, reality becomes the basis for the creation of situations escaping that same reality by evoking dream-like, sometimes unsettling images. I am drawn to the world of dreams, to human psychology, to the exploration of the different identities we take on to protect ourselves from a menacing outside world and to how individuals relate to their own solitude. The rural environment in which I live, which is at the same time raw and overwhe