'We have not long to find acceptable answers.' - Garrett Hardin
These works are part of a series of thirteen. They discuss some ideas surrounding the future of human civilization during and after potential disaster(s) caused by global climate change, peak oil, economic collapse, and over-population. I have taken some inspiration from The Road by Cormac McCarthy and my own mumblings regarding what, after looking into it a bit, I can safely refer to as 'the descent into barbarism'.
I have been working on the project for over a year and my attitude towards how to present these ideas has changed during that time. I want to be more positive. I am still deciding how I ought to properly approach these intentions because I am not sure that being positives creates positivity. There is little to celebrate in The Road but it has made me want to do something and that is all I want my work to do to other people.
Some of the work is about how relationships will change after these events and about the day-to-day politics of survival (survival of politics). How will those of us who have been separated from our nomadic state of being for so long fare in a world without a society to support us? I wonder how long concepts such as capitalism and socialism can last when all a person can do is eat other persons. I seem to find similarities between what might be happening in this time yet to come and what is happening now.
Other themes are discussed.
The thirteen greyboards will be exhibited as part of EASTinternational 2009 in Norwich.
'We want nature' is perhaps to do with the cracks in pathways that have moss growing in them and Mountain Ash trees that seem to spring up everywhere. Also, I made a t-shirt that had a William Morris quote on it that seems to have a synergy: 'The huge manufacturing districts will be broken up, and nature will heal the horrible scars that man's heedless greed and stupid terror have made.'
Found greyboard, rubber stamp ink