Title: The present is woven with multiple pasts.
As a child I lived in several big cities abroad and I remember a feeling of estrangement when visiting my native Norway. Used to a life in an urban environment, the untouched nature felt
both frightening and enticing, familiar but strange. Freud described this feeling with the term “das Unheimliche” – a feeling that something once known and safe, feels uncanny, strange and eerie. A feeling echoed by the prospects the world faces today. This project reflects the fears I have for the future of our next generation and the planet we are leaving them.
Our children’s relationship with their natural surroundings is one different from the generations before them. The generations that follow us will confront a range of outcomes whose limits are determined by the choices we make today. We are leaving them a world of mass extinction and rising sea-levels. A world in which hopes of living in harmony with nature long has been foreclosed.
This past year we have seen school strikes inspired by Greta Thunberg in 129 countries. Our young are asking us to take responsibility. Challenging us to act before it is too late. Their cries are cries of warning. As a mother my instinct is to comfort them and tell them that everything will be ok.
I can’t.
