“What’s your view at 4am?”

Over the past week or so I’ve been having trouble sleeping as my body is still healing from the renal operation I had last week, and my mind is full…full of thoughts of what I’ve got to do…what if? Shall I? What to do? I’ve often specifically seen the time 4am and wondered why this time? I think the subconscious power of the mind and body is overwhelming sometimes and I definitely wish I had an “off” switch. This morning, I woke up to feel more human in mind…I just need to heal more in body. Anyway, I’ve been tweeting my 4am insomnia-related thoughts, and I ended up talking to Karen Strunks, a photographer and blogger from Birmingham, UK. She started the growing 4am Project, where photographs are gathered and collected from around the world at the time of 4am on scheduled dates. Everyone, in any international location can take part and join in as all you need is a camera.

“What’s your view at 4am?”

For some reason, I only thought she did the project at 4am on the 4th April (4-4-4), but she told me that she has done, and is planning, many more of the 4am Projects throughout the rest of the year, and is looking to do one in September/October 2011 time. As I might well be in China then for the 5th Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (CCVA) conference, for PhD research, and a pinch of teaching at the Academy of International Visual Arts (AIVA), I thought how amazing it would be to not only do it from China, but to (if possible) include my students at that time. Fantastic right? I’m already excited about the possibilities…it’s just whether the students would be allowed. As I was talking to my friend MK on the phone about the 4am Project, he told me to look at this TED talk called ‘Rives on 4am’ from March 2007. Rives is a poet and here speaks “8 minutes of lyrical origami, folding history into a series of coincidences surrounding that most surreal of hours, 4 o’clock in the morning.” I would encourage you to watch this witty, articulate and real smile starter for the day. It certainly gets you thinking about the coincidences in life as well as the importance of 4am. I asked Karen Strunks if she’d seen this talk…of course she had! They’d actually been in touch with each other, but so far Rives hasn’t got involved. I’m certainly going to think more about what I see the next time I’m awake at 4am…will you?