“The mind which plunges into Surrealism, relives with burn­ing excite­ment the best part of child­hood.” –Andre Breton, Surrealist Manifesto, 1924

French poet and founder of the Surrealism move­ment Andre Breton had a point. To live within the realm of the absurd, the uncon­scious, the sur­real, is to live in a state of won­der. This is a place where cre­ativ­ity can run ram­pant. Things don’t have to make per­fect sense. There are lim­it­less possibilities.

We’ve had the plea­sure of expe­ri­enc­ing plenty of sur­real spaces dur­ing the course of our lives, from mind-bending con­tem­po­rary art instal­la­tions, to the Bioluminescent Bay in Puerto Rico. Spending time in envi­ron­ments like these makes us feel alive. They get our wheels turn­ing… get us think­ing about incor­po­rat­ing some of these non­sen­si­cal con­cepts into our own liv­ing spaces.

So why not sleep in a gold bed in the shape of a duck? And why not illu­mi­nate your liv­ing room with a floor lamp fit for a giant? And why not dec­o­rate with sculp­tures of human body parts like eyes, lips and hands through­out your home? It’s fun. It keeps your guests guess­ing. And it keeps you inspired.

We’ve col­lected some pho­tos of sur­real envi­ron­ments and home objects, among them hotels, retail spaces, art instal­la­tions, and essen­tric res­i­den­tial homes. Playful and exper­i­men­tal, each of these spaces is full of imag­i­na­tion. Like Breton said, they make us relive “with burn­ing excite­ment the best part of childhood.”

HighStreet.Cincinnati