Black Power Naps

MoMA Installation by Navild Acosta and Sosa

This project asks “How can we dream when we don’t sleep?”. This photo is of an interactive installation hosted at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2023. It highlights the racial inequalities that are exasperated because of the “sleep gap”.

Yale published a study in 2022 that showed a significant disparity between the sleep that Black people get compared people of other racial backgrounds. This disparity is deeply rooted in the systemic racism that Black and Indigenous people experience today. As the Yale team highlights:

“Both short sleep and long sleep duration are associated with higher risk of suffering adverse medical events, including higher risk of death,” he said. “Thus, the persistent sleep disparities for Black people may be contributing to the persistent average worse health status among Black people. There should be renewed efforts to eliminate the socioeconomic and health conditions that prevent minoritized racial and ethnic individuals from achieving adequate sleep — including racism.”