The Omnipotence of Dream: Research Timeline

The Omnipotence of DreamCurated by: David Hancock, Angela Tait, Paula Chambers & Dawn WoolleyExhibition: Salford Museum & Art Gallery, 19 Oct 2024 – 23 Feb 2025Conference: University of Salford, 12 Feb 2025The Omnipotence of Dream marked the centenary of André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism by re-examining Surrealism’s legacy through contemporary queer, trans, and feminist theory. The research asked how Surrealism’s historically exclusionary narratives might be reframed through intersectional, inclusive, and digitally informed curatorial practice.The project employed curatorial scholarship as research method, combining archival investigation within Salford Museum’s Surrealist holdings, collaborative exhibition-making, and critical dialogue through workshops, teaching, and a public conference. Six historical Surrealist works from the Museum’s collection were used as generative catalysts for sixteen new commissions by contemporary artists and students from the Universities of Salford and Leeds Arts University.Through this process, the curatorial team developed and tested a new manifesto for twenty-first-century Surrealism that foregrounds inclusivity and hybridity as creative and methodological principles. The accompanying academic conference extended these enquiries through papers and performances exploring post-digital Surrealism and embodied subjectivities. Its proceedings underpin a proposed Bloomsbury volume (Surrealism Beyond Binaries, under peer review) and a journal article with Taylor & Francis (The Omnipotence of Dream, under review).The exhibition attracted over 11,000 visitors and generated regional and specialist critical attention, including Kirsty Jukes’s 2024 review in The Fourdrinier, which described the project as “a hopeful and exciting re-imagining of Surrealism.” With 150 conference delegates and four public workshops, the project demonstrates research rigour, originality and significance through its integration of curatorial, scholarly, and pedagogic practice—advancing knowledge in transhistorical curation and evidencing how practice-based research can re-read canonical movements through inclusive, intersectional frameworks.