Why I am leaving systems-change work to become an artist

The answer is pretty simple - I’m dissatisfied. I have been for some time and I’ve struggled to figure out why. From the outside my work in systems change ticks a lot of boxes. I work in wonderful communities with incredible people to build meaningful, real world projects that have tangible impacts on peoples’ lives. I’ve helped communities build networks for distributing sustainably produced food. I’ve built community farms. I’ve been part of international social movements that have changed international human rights laws. My work allows me to travel and is incredibly flexible. Over the years I’ve been doing this kind of work I’ve built relationships and income streams that mean I can do this comfortably and my projects have increasingly significant impact. And yet I am deeply unsatisfied.

Intellectually I know that building new systems upon a bedrock of social and ecological justice is important. But when I look at my work, my colleagues, our projects I want to scream. How is it that with each passing ecological tipping point and corporate takeover of our basic needs we just wake up the next day and get back to the same to-do list we had the day before? I can feel the unrest tingling my skin. We make space in check-ins and circles to bring our whole human selves, then go back to pleasantries, polite framings and positive mental attitudes. All I can think of in these moments is this meme:

This meme first appeared in K.C. Green's Gunshow comic #648

Everything is NOT fine and we know it. 

Everything is not fine

The first clue I noticed that I was missing something in my work was in 2016. Myself and everyone I knew was shocked at the outcome of the referendum. So many years of working in communities trying to build transformation and I had no idea that the pulse of the country would beat us out of the EU. This didn’t come from nowhere. This spoke to a deep dissatisfaction that I had been ignoring. Since that time I’ve tried to open my awareness. This dissatisfaction is not always visible, it lies brewing under the surface in a fermenting pot of unease. While a shining light exists in so much social change work, it doesn’t feel like we are touching the sides of a darkness that exists just beneath the surface of this polished societal veneer.

Since the referendum it has seemed to me like this darkness has been growing. Brexit, Trump, increasingly far right governments, foreign and corporate influence in elections, mass corruption in government, accelerating ecological extraction, war, war propaganda, alt-right movements, increasingly severe climate breakdown, pandemics, mental health crises. This darkness has been met with moments of transformation - community responses, Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, trans-rights movements, celebration, peace, love. But I can’t shake the feeling that the waves of darkness that are growing are bigger and more powerful than the waves of light. I really cannot tell whether I am perceiving this darkness acutely due to my personal experiences and background or if this is objectively true. I get mixed responses when I confide in my friends about this. How much of what I perceive is framed by my inner world? And how much can I claim to be objectively true?

The darkness in me

If I’m honest with myself I know I have a proclivity toward the darkness. I have experienced depression since my 6 year old self created a maladaptive coping strategy that has defined my whole life. As a young teen I adopted a ‘fake it til you make it’ approach which got me through school, university and some of my working life with a semblance of success, but the darkness never left. It grew stronger in the parts of myself that I was pretending were not there. For most of my adult life I lived an isolated existence avoiding meaningful relationships so that no one would ever have to see the reality of my darkness. I hid behind workaholism and mild substance abuse until my mid 30s, when something snapped. I left a good job in an embarrassingly melodramatic style and decided that I needed to find my way out of the darkness. My strategy - move toward joy.

It quickly became clear to me that I did not know how to find my joy. I spent months just following impulses on activities that might have been fun. This journey led me out of my head, into my body and in particular, into my emotional self. One amazing teacher helped me to break down the walls. “What if our capacity for joyful feelings is equal to our capacity for darker feelings? '' she asked. “If you try to block out the darkness, you’re also blocking out the joy”. This was the start of a tectonic shift in how I approached my darkness. “Emotions are like a river. We can’t control the river, but we can learn how to ride it. If you block the flow, you block all the emotions, not just the darker ones.” Instead of the darkness being a dragon under the surface that I needed to slay and vanquish, maybe I needed to actually feel the feelings I’d been wishing didn’t exist. 

The world we make

The culture I was raised in valued positivity and mental toughness above all else. Positivity culture shames negative feelings as unwelcome. As tiny young people we experience the world in such a raw and full way. Then the adults around us inform us of how appropriate our emotional responses are. I meet very few people who feel they had the right guidance in their emotional growth as children. Many of us feel a sense of shame for the emotions we’ve had that were not welcomed or supported. We learned this when an event we perceived as traumatic was met without support or understanding. We learned that who we were - and by extension who we are - was and is not okay. We learned, falsely, that there is something wrong with us. In order to be accepted or loved we needed to be different.

A child who feels that they need to change who they are to be loved - this is cruel and lasting emotional abuse. This is the definition of oppression. In a culture that is so defined by oppressive systems, it should come as no surprise that we unknowingly pass them from parent to child in the grooming of our emotional worlds. We teach each successive generation how to fit into oppressive culture by oppressing them - ‘helping’ them fit into society. But the oppressed parts of ourselves don’t die. Children grow into adults with this internalised oppression alive inside. These parts become the dark parts of ourselves that we are ashamed to face. These parts fester, ferment and grow in so many individuals, and when these individuals are in fact a majority, this forms an entire culture.

A Domination Culture

When I look around at the culture I live in I can’t help but see a culture that is profoundly ill. This is a culture that chases superficial happiness and highs in order to hide from a darkness it cannot face. This is a culture that consumes a planet toward extinction hungry to fill an emotional void. This is a culture that accepts vast inequality on a global scale seemingly without deep empathy. This is a culture rife with unprecedented rates of mental health illnesses. This is a culture that stands by, confused, watching itself collapse. What if ecological and social collapse are a collective manifestation of an internal darkness that we do not know how to face? Perhaps us humans are better manifesters than we know. Our internal darkness becomes realised in our environment. As David Graeber said “The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”

I call this culture ‘domination culture’ inspired by the work of Joanna Macy, Sharon Blackie, Bill Plotkin and others. Over a lot of years, and the past 4 years in particular I have spent a huge amount of time processing my own internalised domination. This process has been monumental. I have grieved horrendous childhood pains, and been opened to mind bending realisations and spiritual experiences. The experiences I have had have made me a better friend, partner, colleague, lover, citizen and daughter. I am no longer afraid of the darkness. Instead I need to reassess my place in this world. 

Why an artist? 

I believe that while our darkness is exiled it will continue to grow, both within ourselves as mental health illness and collectively as unrest and division. To transform our culture with the urgency our times call for, we need to face this darkness. We need empathy, collaboration and courage. We need approaches that go beyond the rational, beyond current systems, boundaries and limitations. I have spent my life lost within the rational. I was too good at thinking to allow myself to escape the confines of my own mind - a mind shaped and carved by these oppressive systems. So eloquently captured in this timeless lyric by Gnarls Barkley “But it wasn't because I didn't know enough. I just knew too much”

Art does not need a rational explanation to be valid. It has a licence to explore. Art lives in the body and the heart as well as the mind. It has the power to conjure from beyond the limits of rational thought, to plant seeds just beyond the limits of imagination. I believe art is fundamental in conjuring a new reality into existence. 

Now that I am now longer afraid of the darkness I want to play with the darkness. Through my art I want to weave harmonies between the darkness and the light. As an artist I go by the name Sequora & the Wolf - two characters I have met on my journeys who I will introduce more fully in future posts. Sequora, a small green fairy, represents light, playful, beautiful and innocent qualities. The lone Wolf, an emotionally injured pack animal, sits alone in the darkness hesitant to be seen. As an artist I explore the spaces in which these characters meet.

I am at the start of my journey, and I plan to share it as I go. I will be sharing more of the stories from my adventures that have led me here. I’ll be sharing insights from the wise elders who have helped me in these intrepid explorations. And, of course, I will be sharing my artistic creations. I would be honoured if you’d join this journey with me by subscribing to this newsletter.