"Are you in love or are you just distracted?"

Sometimes in life we get caught up. Perhaps, we find ourselves trying to live up to an unrealistic expectation and forget what we originally wanted, lose sight of what is important. This piece was the beginning of me trying to unravel such feelings; make sense of personal trauma. I wanted to understand why I felt lost and how I had lost such a big part of myself to a relationship that wasn't at all what it seemed. So, I opened up a very private question, one that I had initially only intended to be written down in my diary and invited anyone that felt connected to what I had put out there, to question themselves too.

This is the question I wish I had asked myself sooner. 

Behind the design:

As part of the "Play at Home" project, I created a piece of art that turned into a self analysis. This piece was in response to the "Create an Information Sign", asking you to disperse a piece of advice that you personally think the general public would need. I chose to look at this task in a slightly unusual way - inspired by a troubled time in my life, I wanted people to consider what parts of their lives are there for the right reasons, if they're genuine or if they were just a distraction from their issues. For me, it was distraction. And so this piece was born.

"ASK YOURSELF" is exactly what I did - this question was only ever intended to be personal but I began to realise how during quarantine, whether out of desperation or by default, we had all latched onto one another. But perhaps we were hoping to find something in others that we couldn't find in ourselves or even using them as a distraction from the world around us.

ARE YOU IN LOVE OR ARE YOU DISTRACTED?" was specific to my experience in relationships. I found myself trying to find purpose through others as a way of avoiding responsibility, but this piece is more than just that - it's about using something, or someone, as a distraction, the consequences of doing so and the growth that occurs from a painful experience. I didn't want it to feel aggressive or confrontational however, so I kept constantly in mind how I felt when I needed to ask myself this question - how I needed a space to allow for growth, change and then eventually healing. I wanted passers by to have a similar conversation with themselves and although this piece wasn't necessarily going to provide an answer to a strangers issue in an instant, I felt it was enough to intitate a moment to think. For me, all it took was taking a step back from all the distractions to realise that I wasn't as happy as I was kidding myself to be - proving to be one of the most painful realisations during isolation. Unfortunately, especially in the world we live in today, distractions are easy to latch onto - sometimes they're even necessary to move through life. This is what this piece explores. The act of being "distracted" will never be labelled as a bad one, allowing passers by to create their own perception of what that may be or even encouraging them to re-evaluate how they look at their love. It's not restrictive, it has exactly the space that I so desperately needed and I think people have connected with that, however the meaning may relate.