Dream big: How art provides a window into the hidden parts of ourselves

©Phillip Ekwaro-Osire

Cypriot artist Anaïda Melivia conjures surreal, unsettling creatures that embody our deepest emotions, fears, and desires. By exploring the connection between dreaming and waking life—the conscious and the subconscious—she explores the parts of us that usually stay below the surface. Her performance Dream Big unfolds like a lucid dream: fragmented, tender, absurd, and disturbing all at once.

Bathed in warm lighting, the scene opens in what resembles a comforting home. From a hole in the bed, a creature slowly crawls out—its form bulbous and strange, teetering between the endearing and the grotesque. With uncertain, unsteady movements, it stretches its limbs and stumbles toward a water basin, brushing its teeth with childlike awkwardness. Shuffling into the kitchen, it prepares a meal resembling coils of intestine, carrying it to another creature slumped over at a table, head bowed and unresponsive. From the speakers, a voice echoes: Why don’t you eat what I made for you? You never appreciate the things I do for you. Turning to another figure seated further away, it blurts out bizarre, nonsensical facts: “Do you know octopuses invented music but forgot to copyright it? When you try to microwave a banana, it calls its fruit lawyer.” The speaker blasts: You’re not sharp enough to understand. The creature falters. Disoriented, it returns to its bed—and the cycle begins again.

Using skin-colored stockings stuffed with pillow filling, Anaïda sculpts strange, soft-bodied creatures. Crowned by enormous heads, disproportionate to the rest of their bodies, these creatures are characterized by big noses, yellowing teeth, glaring eyes, swollen skin, and wrinkles. Made to look both uncanny and familiar, they blur the lines between the human and the surreal.

A glimpse into the performance – watch below.

I try to make sense of the scene unfolding before me. At times, the audience laughs, offering fleeting relief but just beneath the surface, a quiet sadness hums. There is a weight pressing against my chest that I cannot shake. It is the familiar sting of rejection, of being overlooked, of wanting to be seen and not quite making it. The performance ends on a quiet, intimate note: the creature stands before a mirror, embracing its reflection, as if searching there for the love and tenderness the world has failed to give it.

“I wanted to enhance the bad characteristics we associate with beauty norms,” Anaïda says, “So I asked myself: How can I play with them? How can I make them look both weird yet normal enough so the viewer can relate to them.” This line of questioning shaped the visual language of her work, transforming her creatures into absurd, dysmorphic, genderless beings—blending both feminine and masculine physical traits into a single, unsettling presence. This blurring creates a sense of confusion, challenging the viewer’s assumptions about identity and the body.

“I make the masks slightly larger than a normal head, which gives them a funny, exaggerated look. I like them to resemble people you might see in everyday life, as if someone familiar had been transformed into a creature,” she says. By enhancing specific features, she adds a touch of humor to her creations, creating a strange tension intended to both unsettle and amuse the viewer. 

This idea originated from ancient Greek phallic comedy and satire, where exaggerated sexual imagery and absurd humor were used to critique social norms and human behavior. “When something is wrapped in humor, it becomes easier to accept,” Anaïda says. She believes that by making people laugh, it is easier to sneak in important messages.

Whilst she wants her creatures to look disturbing, she finds it equally important for them to be relatable. “If you see art that looks like you—that looks like a human being—you can relate to it more easily due to the similarities. It becomes more alive to your perception, you’re more likely to have empathy for and be affected by it,” she says. She believes the discomfort triggered by seeing her art can lead to acceptance of one’s own weird quirks—however different you are from others.

The idea to create these creatures emerged from her dreams: “These textures and creatures often appear to me just as I’m drifting off to sleep. There’s something about these wrinkly, bubbly, strange textures that both disturbs and attracts me at the same time,” she says. She started to wonder how her dreaming and waking life are connected and how dreams can be experienced as a way of learning about oneself.

Anaïda began developing the concept of intrusive dreams, focusing on those filled with irrational behavior, violence, or moral dilemmas. Having experienced many such dreams herself, she realized they weren’t just disturbing—they were also revealing. She started learning to reflect on them rather than repressing them. “You don’t have to identify with your dreams or let them define how you see yourself,” she says. 

These reflections led her to imagine her creatures embodied on a stage within a dreamlike space that feels almost real, suspended between waking and sleeping. To express her vision, she collaborated with a performer: “The performer makes the creature come alive, giving a part of themselves to it,” she says.

This performative element adds a new dimension to her work, making it more immediate and impactful. Unlike an art exhibition—where viewers can come and go freely, choosing how much they wish to engage with—she believes performance art demands full presence and attention. “I think it was the best way for the piece to be understood more clearly, and for its message to come across more directly. In general, I believe performance art is the most powerful form of expression,” she says.

“Only if I am honest with myself, can I properly convey how I feel through my art”

This immersive process not only draws in the audience, it has also brought Anaïda into closer contact with herself. “Taking these ideas out of my head and making them come alive, turning them into their own beings, allowed me to let go of them and  release their control over me,” she says. While she initially felt self-conscious showing the performance to a bigger audience, she holds that true artistic expression demands honesty: “Only if I am honest with myself, can I properly convey how I feel through my art.” 

She believes that emotional honesty in her work creates a more authentic connection with the viewer: “If I’m honest with what I express, then the viewer also gets an honest perception because it’s an honest transaction.”

The Glass Room also spoke with the performer – listen below.