A Pajama Party That Pauses Time
With Slumber Party, Benoît Piéron transforms the harshness of hospitals into a softer, dream-like space, where time seems flexible.
LONDON — Liminality comes from the Latin word for “threshold,” representing a space of in-betweenness. For artist Benoît Piéron, hospitals are such in-between spaces. In particular, they are sites in which time can be experienced as nonlinear and thus can hold the potential for celebratory radicality. For Slumber Party at Chisenhale, Piéron’s first UK solo exhibition, he stitched together a large patchwork textile in faded pastel hues, draping it from the ceiling. Composed of discarded bed sheets collected from hospitals in the UK and France, the expansive marquee appears both protective and whimsical. Piéron, who cites the concept of time as a medium, invites the visitors to stand beneath the canopy as a proposition to radicalize space, transforming the harshness of hospitals into a softer, dream-like space — a space where time seems flexible and both personal and collective.
Piéron’s practice responds to his own experience of illness from a young age. In particular, he is interested in the communities that exist in hospitals. The canopy, with its comforting shades of pink, blue, and yellow, is reminiscent of forts built by children at slumber parties. These tent-like structures, made from sheets and cushions, are not physically protective, but become secure sites for children to share secrets and harness their imaginations. These characteristics are apparent standing beneath the large textile in Chisenhale and support Piéron’s cathartic redefinition of the hospital bed sheets.
The construction of the patchwork in this context draws parallels between a sewing “stitch” and medical “stitches,” redefining it as both a protective covering and a skin. These parallels are reinforced by visible stains and markings on the multicolored canopy. Such traces resonate with the tradition of storytelling in quilt-making and the individual narratives that inhere in each piece of repurposed cotton. The narratives, though unarticulated, feel honored by the artist.
The suspended structure is anchored to a three-meter wood table leg topped with an equally oversized pin cushion. Its scale and totemic shape evoke a talisman, conjuring a protective spirit. “Monica” (2023), a small soft toy bat sewn by Piéron from recycled hospital gowns, located at the gallery entrance, also provides a sense of animist protection, like the plush toys children often receive in hospitals to comfort and mitigate trauma.
Fifteen egg-like domes, each of them containing a revolving and flashing emergency light, are scattered across the gallery floor. Collectively titled “Radical Softness” (2023), the usual fast-paced strobe, synonymous with trauma, is here slowed, its appearance distorted by a wash of pastels, rendering the light softer and less severe. This mechanical changing of rhythm reminds us that time is elastic and personal.
Nonlinear experiences of time within hospitals and illness explored in Slumber Party also echo the temporal relationships addressed in "crip time” studies. A theory at the intersection of feminist, queer, and disabilities studies by Alison Kafer, it examines how people who are disabled, neurodivergent, and chronically ill experience time differently.
In Slumber Party the faint yellow of the gallery walls recalls a waiting room — a threshold within hospitals where the bending of time is often driven by anticipation. Piéron said: “I have created a pajama party that celebrates the pause, the waiting ….” His art is a poignant examination of the expansiveness of the lived experience of waiting and of time. It is a provocative and powerful collective site for reoriented existence.
Benoît Piéron: Slumber Party continues at Chisenhale Gallery (64 Chisenhale Road, London, England) through November 12. The exhibition was commissioned and produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London, with support from the Chisenhale Gallery Commissions Fund.
