Somnio: The Way We See It

"Somnio: The Way We See It" is a book about mediation between images and words, words and worlds, visions and cosmos, and identities and locations. It is a collection of art and poetry translated into each other by an artist and three poets. They explore the visions of transformations in nature, in everyday lives, and in mobility from one culture to another. In their works, a profound meditation on ordinary details creates lyrical dreams, which are in turn embedded in the lines and shadows of reality.

Tiffany Adair's lithographs display a wide range of artistic engagements: the bio-organic worlds appear in creation and decay; the multilayered visions of reality imbricate each other; the blank spaces merge the images of both the outer and the inner worlds. Pushpa Raj Acharya's poems bond the changes in life with the complexities of nature. In this binding, he finds revelations of interconnected world and of forgiveness. Sharmila Pokharel listens to the cadence of immigrant voices and experiences. Living in between the emotions of new and old homes, she gives an authentic form to Nepali diasporic sensibilities. With her capacity of deep observation, Yukari Meldrum has found the magic of things and events in daily life. In her poems, the materiality of life opens a flight to a space where dream and awakening blend with each other, and the words give visibility to this space.

"Somnio: The Way We See It" received the Cultural Diversity in the Arts Project Grant from the Edmonton Arts Council and the City of Edmonton for collaboration and publication.