Anthony Stevens British, b. 1978
Nowhere Man, 2020
Hand embroidery
31.5 x 19 cm
Copyright The Artist
Currency:
Made in 2020 as part of Isolated Observations, an exhibition of work made in response to the Covid 19 lockdown. Nowhere man was made a few days after ‘Somewhere’. I...
Made in 2020 as part of Isolated Observations, an exhibition of work made in response to the Covid 19 lockdown.
Nowhere man was made a few days after ‘Somewhere’. I was thinking about identity and how in our culture this is often tied to what we do for a living and the perceived status that this brings. Careers and work lives, do after all take up a very large chunk of our waking time.
I imagined that for many people, there was a loss of identity and an unravelling of who they thought they were, a whole society of people entering a groundless phase of liminality and uncertainty. As terrifying as this can be, and it is terrifying, I do feel that there is a certain freedom that can come from being in this sort of experience, a sort of stripping down and building back up can occur that is more congruent to the potential human being, rather than the human doing. An opportunity to ask ‘who am I really’?
This process however takes time and support. Will these things be given I wonder?
Nowhere man was made a few days after ‘Somewhere’. I was thinking about identity and how in our culture this is often tied to what we do for a living and the perceived status that this brings. Careers and work lives, do after all take up a very large chunk of our waking time.
I imagined that for many people, there was a loss of identity and an unravelling of who they thought they were, a whole society of people entering a groundless phase of liminality and uncertainty. As terrifying as this can be, and it is terrifying, I do feel that there is a certain freedom that can come from being in this sort of experience, a sort of stripping down and building back up can occur that is more congruent to the potential human being, rather than the human doing. An opportunity to ask ‘who am I really’?
This process however takes time and support. Will these things be given I wonder?
