Rethinking Art in the time of Collapse
2 Mar, 2024.
I have just returned from three weeks in Vietnam. More than ten years ago, after learning that air travel accounts for over 2.5% of global emissions I decided to fly only if absolutely necessary. But my partner wanted to go. His brother had lived in Vietnam for twenty-five years before passing away last year, and he wanted to make a pilgrimage—to see where his brother had lived, to understand why he stayed so long. Despite my misgivings, it felt like a valid reason. So we went.
We’re home now and friends are asking me, “How was it?” In so many ways, it was great. The people are kind and welcoming. The food is inexpensive, delicious, and healthy, we had the break from life that we needed to reset. But as always, the real takeaways from travel are found between the lines—in what lingers after one returns home.
Vietnam: A Country in Crisis
I’m not here to criticise Vietnam—it’s a country with so much to offer but my overwhelming sense of Vietnam is that it is a land whose health is in decline. The rivers are choked with plastic and polystyrene. The air is so thick with pollution that many people have persistent coughs. A surreal example of late-stage capitalism: the resort where we stayed for part of our trip was an oasis of luxury, but it is surrounded by eighteen abandoned mega-resorts and twenty hectares of razed beachfront—development frozen mid-construction. And yet, this same region has the highest homelessness rate in Vietnam.
But the thing that hit me hardest? There were no birds.
At first, I noticed their absence at the beach—there were no seagulls. Then I realized that apart from a few lonely sparrows, I hadn’t seen birds anywhere. It felt like a silent warning—like the canary in the coal mine, but on a national scale.
Loss at the Edge of the World
The most moving part of our trip was in Sapa, a mountain town in northern Vietnam. We stayed in a traditional eco-lodge, and a local guide took us down into the valley, through a collection of hill-tribe villages.
She told us how quickly things were changing, with tourism developments mushrooming and visitors choking services. How, last September, the heaviest rains the elders had ever seen caused multiple landslides and many deaths. “I know that change is good,” she said wistfully, “but it’s happening so fast.”
And then she told me about the bats.
We had just been invited into a traditional home—three simple rooms on a concrete slab, with a central fire. It was dark inside. The mother of the house squatted on the damp floor skeining strands of hemp for weaving. Our guide told me about her own childhood in a house just like this, but higher up in the mountains. At night, when they lit the fire for warmth and an oil lamp for light, little bats would fly in, settling on the rafters. “We loved them,” she laughed. “They were so funny.”
Then her face changed.
“But they don’t come anymore. I think they don’t like us anymore. Maybe they will change their minds and come back.”
I don’t know why, but of all the climate-related tragedies I’ve read about, this one brought the dire situation we are facing into visceral reality. I wanted to tell her the truth, but I couldn’t.
What is the Role of the Artist Now?
Returning to my studio gallery, the way I’ve been making art for the past couple of years feels meaningless. One of the key findings from my Ph.D. study where I looked at the ecovillage movement as an art movement, was that art making in ecovillages isn’t about fame or fortune—it’s about integrating creativity into everyday life. There’s no emphasis on quality or success—only on participation. It’s not about what you do, but that you do it.
Yet, when I finished my study, instead of exploring how these ideas can translate into the mainstream, I jumped headfirst back into the capital ‘A’ Art world. Making work for sale, entering prizes, looking for commercial gallery representation, then opening my own gallery, and wrestling with the exhausting necessity of social media. And while there have definitely been successes, the relentless cycle of rejections from prize committees and commercial galleries has left me feeling drained.
Vietnam forced me to rethink how I should proceed as an artist. If the air is fouled and the rivers choked, if there are no birds, and the bats aren’t coming back and if, according to all of the scholarship I read during my research, the reality is that there is no area in which the situation is improving, what is the point? What is the point of putting myself up for prizes, jostling with the myriad of other voices for a place in the collectors market or making commericially focused work for an increasingly overcrowded market? As serendipity would have it, a friend sent me a link to the work of Dr. Jem Bendell, a professor from Glasgow University. His thesis? We are no longer in a position to mitigate social and environmental collapse—we are living through the early stages of it.
So I find myself asking: What is the role of the artist in a time of collapse? What is it that art can do?
Where to From Here?
To be honest with you, I don’t really know. Of course I will chase up opportunities that will provide me with income but I can feel myself pivoting into a new way of working. I am committed to communicating my thoughts via this blog, where I will explore the possibilities of how to work as an artist in this time of endings, to discover what, if any, are the new beginnings. Maybe artists are valuable in reshaping reality, helping communities to imagine and embody new ways of living. Maybe it’s about creating spaces for people to process grief and/or despair. Maybe art is a tool for experimenting with new forms of community, such as the ecovillage communties that I studied. Maybe a book needs to be written, or maybe this blog will do what needs to be done. Or maybe it’s a matter of dreaming into new myths, stories and rituals that may help us foster connection and meaning in a fragmenting world. Whatever shape it forms, I invite you to come along for the ride. Because I know now, there is no turning back.
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