#itsnotokay

when ross shows my stages of sadness and grief..... and how i couldn’t explain to people just why i was extremely not okay at work yesterday (and still today)

just one person understood, my colleague dan who came onto shift a while later and we simply looked at each other with sadness and a nod- smoked one for eddie later on that night, 

YAAAAAAAS

NOT YAAAAAS 😢 DON'T FORGET

These are my feelings in this moment- the realness of my mortality beside me. Simple acts like going out and listening to music become a form of resistance. There’s an equal fear of either becoming desensitized to the pain or feeling too much and not being able to carry on. You step out, life goes on, your previous thoughts feel dramatic. A lingering realisation of the unpredictability stays on. It’s not okay.

Conversations take a surreal turn- should we step out for lunch, or is there a real possibility that something will blow up? Plans with friends are prefaced with a sharing of security alerts and finding out whether the area is under threat. Some end up staying in, others decide to step out. Foreign friends text asking if you’re safe, and you automatically reply saying, “it’s okay”. This is not okay.

I made this series as a response to how suddenly we were swung back into a security crisis, almost overnight. With bombs going off across the country, the senseless loss of life, the unpredictability of our everyday's- there’s no singular way to cope with it all. The very setting of this piece- at an art show at a music festival- in a time of a security crisis- is surreal. This is not normal.