Adam Chodzko – Deep Above
2015 - 2016
Watershed, Bristol, Shambala Festival and Manchester Science Festival, UK
‘Deep Above’ attempts, through art, to loosen our mental blocks about environmental catastrophe. We appreciate, intellectually, its potentially devastating impact on our planet and yet simultaneously we distance ourselves from feeling this danger, diverting our belief into fantasies that somehow, individually, we are impervious.
“What is the psychological gap where we understand that climate change occurs yet remain paralysed from taking action?”
Chodzko uses moving image and sound to explore, short-circuit and abstract our slippery self-deceptions regarding climate change. Exploring the zones between the rational and irrational, and mind and body, whilst adopting the languages of meditation, hypnosis and ‘self help’ he addresses the behavioural psychology analysed in George Marshall’s brilliant book ‘Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change.’
Chodzko uses moving image and sound to explore, short-circuit and abstract our slippery self-deceptions regarding climate change. Exploring the zones between the rational and irrational, and mind and body, whilst adopting the languages of meditation, hypnosis and ‘self help’ he addresses the behavioural psychology analysed in George Marshall’s brilliant book ‘Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change.’
‘Deep Above’ was commissioned by Invisible Dust and was first shown at Watershed, Bristol before touring to Manchester, Shambala Festival, The Wellcome Trust, University of Kent, Groundwork. Chodzko worked with Dr Adam Harris, lecturer in Experimental Psychology at UCL and Prof. Paul Wilkinson London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The project was funded by an Arts Award from the Wellcome Trust and was part of the Bristol European Green Capital and Bristol Festival of Ideas.
Image: © Adam Chodzko, ‘Deep Above’ 2015