the void migrates to the surface Advances in Geophysics 2016, R.Macfarlane: Underland

The perception of fear is sometimes experienced as sending a chill down the spine, spine-chilling and spinetingling or spineless yet courage is sown by havin some backbone. (HarperCollins Publishers)

Black wooden box, 13x13x7cm, magnifying glass, 11x11cm Giclèe print. Edition of 1.

As a species we fear the unknown, we are programmed to be cautious of what we don’t know. This basic human instinct has remained in our DNA for thousands of years. Though some thrive on the new, the majority fear change, especially change that disturbs the comfort zone of that which we have built around us.
Covid-19 has delivered us change, wrapped up as a microscopic virus, a deadly package which in the period of less than 12 months has sent fear through society and demanded drastic alterations to the way we as a species inhabit the planet. It is as if suddenly we have a heightened sense of consciousness of the fact that we are mortal, that we are not immune to unknown factors which may enter our world like an alien invasion. The fears which exist are real, to be taken and accepted, dealt with as best as possible, individually or collectively. Yet fear remains and grows, mutates and develops the same as a virus, they share the same existence.
We have entered a new world, or, are entering, crawling, walking, running, stumbling into the unknown, We can no longer live with expectations, we live with predictions. We have entered the zone of Stalker, we have fallen into Alice’s rabbit hole, we are the walking blind. Have we (entered an underworld) been presented with an entrance, the opportunity to enter an underworld? A world different from that which we know yet a world which could benefit us? Is it time to peel away the materialistic surface of the old world and look at the foundations of what really lies beneath the surface, to look at the foundations, the roots, the skeleton, substance?
Are we able to confront fear, to accept, manage and embrace our fear. Will we evolve or will we perish? Can we adapt and what do we need to adapt?
This work, these images, are a visual metaphor for the need to find and have courage, resolve, fortitude, tenacity, perseverance, resoluteness, doggedness, endurance and conviction in an unknown environment. To confront fear, to have backbone, to enter a new world.

N.Winter Sept.2020.