Unravelling 2021/22

Unravelling is a series of 16 art works, a handmade artist book and a zine, looking at the climate crisis and our response to it. Our need to look away, and our need to face it. It’s about the anxiety that is stirred up in us and the excuses we tell ourselves. And it’s about hope. I puzzle over why, when we know about the climate crisis, we do so little about it? Our fear of looking despite the urgent need to take action. I understand that often the first response on learning the truth is to look away. It takes time to accept such difficult truths, as it did with me. Maybe it’s simply too frightening and we feel helpless, fearing our anxiety will be overwhelming? Once we face and work through this anxiety we are better able to act. As British psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe says, “Being able to bear anxiety is a vital part of being able to face reality”.