Duane Michals uses photographic sequences to stage dreamlike
stories that intertwine the intimate and the surreal. As the sequences unfold,
they explore broad themes of love, loss, separation, death, longing, and
connection, while also speaking to specific political and cultural concerns. In
The Dream of Flowers, an allusion to the AIDS crisis, a young man with his eyes
closed rests his head on a reflective surface. With each progressive photograph,
he is slowly covered with flowers that evoke a funeral but also suggest a
rebirth or a continuation of life after death.