Attend this immersive performance in Mumbai that brings dreams to life

The gates of dreaming

Ruchi Bakshi Sharma doesn't just remember her dreams - she builds them. Alongside her partner Sanjeev Sharma, she has transformed the language of dreams into physical, immersive artworks. Their joint show, Three Times As Dream - being showcased at 47A in Girgaon till May 4 - is a rich, multi-sensory exploration of memory, metaphor, and the subconscious.

Rendered through cabinets, dioramas, lenticulars, mirror screens, and architectural furniture, this show stems from years long practice of dream-keeping. "I must have journalled around 200 dreams," says Ruchi, a filmmaker, designer, artist and toymaker. "Of these, I chose 18 to work on. The ones that stayed in my body, that lingered around for days, that made me feel something visceral."

Dreaming tracks

Ruchi, however, admits that these dreams weren't always easy to decipher. "When I reflected on what I had journalled, they were like experimental films," she recalls. "Scenes would start in the middle of action, jump between places, and people wouldn't look like themselves. It took me over two years to understand that my psyche was the landscape. I had to amplify each symbol - like for instance, a road breaking repeatedly became my idea of a disrupted path. Or even jumping across stones, each leap skipping a year."

The result of this journalling is a layered installation that blurs boundaries between the inner and outer world. Through drawings and visual assemblages, Three Times As Dream invites viewers into symbolic realms with ladders, stairwells, and portals. "A lot of the works are triptychs or diptychs," Ruchi notes.
Sanjeev, whose background lies in theatre and self-taught woodworking, grounds the otherworldliness of Ruchi's visuals with handcrafted architectural furniture. "My role," he says, "was to hold down the material she dreams and give it reality. When she was flying with her journalling and ideation, I tried to build a ground to base these ideas on."

The bridge of incidents

The duo's process is deeply collaborative, but also intuitive. "We've brought in our individual influences almost unconsciously to the showcase," Ruchi reflects, "trying to merge the intuitive and the fantastical with the functional and the conscious."

One particularly striking moment came when Ruchi discovered a shared dream. "Almost 25 years ago, an acquaintance and I realised we had dreamt the same scene - from different perspectives," she says. "It was stunning. That's the magic of dreamwork - sometimes, it's not just personal. It's collective."
And the audiences of Three Times As Dream have felt part of this collective. "My son's class visited the show recently," Ruchi says, smiling. "They said it felt like a fantasy land, where every object could open into a portal. Even adults have had intense, physical reactions. Some said the work made them shudder. That kind of embodied response - it tells me the dream is still alive."

Ruchi Bakshi Sharma and Sanjeev Sharma

WHEN: Till May 4, 2025
WHERE: 7-A, Khotachi Wadi, Girgaon
TO BOOK: Walk in
FREE