Slowly and Then All at Once
What prevents those in power from doing what is necessary to resolve issues around the climate crisis? How can young people, and those of all ages not in positions of power, believe in a future that gets better and not worse? When does the cost of “not acting” become too high? How do we give shape concepts that are hard to see or feel?
These are just some of the questions Andy Sewell wants to bring out with Slowly and Then All at Once.
Exhibited for the first time at Fotografia Europea, it weaves together photographs showing different forms of power involved in the unfolding ecological crisis, to convey a feeling of immersion and interconnection, a feeling of being caught up in this ongoing storm. The project mixes photographs of protests about the climate, high-profile climate diplomacy (such as negotiations in the chambers of UN climate conferences – COP 26, 27 and 28), with more personal images, a visual weather diary made during the artist’s daily life.
Often composed of multiple panels, the images can be read simultaneously as scenes happening in front of us and as fragments – photographs taken in different moments and from different positions. They are continuous and disjointed, clear and uncertain, with a slippery quality that echoes the sensation of looking at the world from an ecological perspective; that moment in which we realise we are always already bound up with everything else and there is no way to fully distance ourselves from what is happening around us. In surfacing these feelings the work helps to affirm a reality that makes hope possible. The fact that political and corporate elites are caught up in systems far bigger than themselves, and, as we are also a part of those systems, it is possible to reach them, it is possible to change course.
According to Sewell, we are living in an age characterised by systemic breakdown, rapidly increasing inequality and profoundly inadequate political representation. The situation is overwhelming, it can make us want to disengage or give up. With this work, Slowly and Then All at Once, he is attempting to counteract these feelings and give shape to something with a physicality, a rhythm, an intensity, that helps us move beyond the dead ends of cynicism and resignation, and towards a feeling of interconnection and an understanding of power that might help us meet the challenges in front of us.
