The Crossroads of Dreams: A Home in Transit and a Ritual of Nomadic Identities is a research project developed during the winter of 2025 as part of Sofía Saavedra's residency at UIUC. The project, developed in collaboration with the Siebel Center for Design and the Department of Theater (Krannert Center for the Performing Arts), investigates dream space as a liminal space that facilitates creation and imagination, offering a symbolic escape in the context of territorial disputes and geopolitical dynamics of contemporary times. Through painting, poetry, installation, performance, and video art, the research explores the interrelationship of three central dimensions: the house as a metaphor for the body and memory; migration and nomadism as the movement of living bodies that disrupts the system; and dreams as a dreamlike threshold that opens possibilities to an unlimited field of ideational creation. As part of the talk, Sofía will present the theoretical and artistic foundations of the project, while inviting reflection on the role of art and dreams as webs of resistance and as pathways toward new imaginaries of belonging and transformation.
Sofia Saavedra is a Venezuelan artist and researcher who has been awarded the prestigious IIE Artist Protection Fund Fellowship (@artistprotectionfund).
In alignment with our mission to foster a supportive environment for all members of our university community, this lecture is open to all persons regardless of race, color or national origin.