VISUAL ARTS
How the Tanks are Filled
I have created a picture book, designed for all ages, which explores the pressing question of “how do we engage with global tragedy?”. From Covid-19 to chronic hunger, the refugee crisis and war, we are all called to grapple with pain on a scale much greater than and farther removed from our individual lives. How should this impact me? What can I do? While we tend towards responses of either apathy or anger, my work proposes that if we ever hope to challenge such issues, we need to grieve them first. My own experiences of processing grief are infused in the story, making it both a personal narrative for me and one that speaks universally to the tragedies we all face. The book follows the journey of a teenager on an adventure to visit an aquarium from her childhood, where she is confronted with the dissonance between her expectation and what she discovers. My work, like most picture books, though often undermined for their simplicity, can be a trojan horse, catching us off guard and piercing the very centre of our souls.
