20/12/25 [Proposal]


First, a spitball & a think about what my relationship to the future (& present) is like.

I want to do everything. I could list, I will list, all of the possible futures that I get satisfaction from dreaming about at the moment. I find it difficult to dispense plans from dreams. For this reason, I struggle to take my plans seriously. I know I will do things, I know I will put my all into them, but the way that things come about in my life seems so abstract from the way that my thoughts about the future form, that I am never clear on the relationship between the two.

It’s not that I believe I don’t do enough, or that what I do is thoughtless. The opportunities that I have taken over the year so far or have in the works for the future (will document) are all based on a foundation of effort and planning (+ luck). The significance of that, the satisfaction & pride within that, is just hidden behind the thick shame wafting off of the things that I have dreamed up or planned but have not done. 

I think too much. I think in the shower, I think as I brush my teeth, and when my head is poking through the head hole of a t-shirt, without fail, I am thinking. I think as I breath in and as I breath out. I think when I am talking, about what I am saying, and I think about what I was thinking before I started talking, just so I don’t lose track. I think into existence a conversation longer than any I will ever have with anyone. And I get tired of it. By the end of every day, I have at least one new idea about the way I should live my life moving forwards that I am absolutely committed to. Today, I have three. 

I should structure proposals to different artist residency opportunities in Europe (irish passport ✨) around making the remaining panels I have as in situ art pieces. Could coat liquid emulsion on the stripped panels and photograph as they both lumen print and then rust. It would be like a small and big cycle pictured over time spent in one space, within one object. Could be cool?

I should mock-up my Arnolfini space now so I can make glass sculptures to fit into the gaps left by whatever panel design I choose. Could do tone-seperations across stacked glass panes. Or could do little shelves drilled into wall with 3d triangular glass sculptures.

Max Ferguson is having a show at his studio I could go on the 17th and make a london career’s weekender out of it, try to arrange a meeting with Lewis Khan too or Myles Morgan Bailey? Would need to come up with a mode of presentation.


And perhaps everyone thinks in this way. But what I know is that it can hurt me sometimes. I end up feeling stressed and ungrateful. In theory I am investing maximum time and energy in my future, but in practice I feel less and less sure of myself and more and more scared of the whole thing.

Recently, I have had a bit of time to slow down. I still think a lot, but I have had time for the feeling side of things too and my feelings have turned into a pit, a good pit, of instinct. I forgot that when you relax, you become much better at navigating life. I want to find a way through this module that both capitalises on (and makes reality out of) the ideas I have, but also involves a lot of slowing down. 

There are two (very connected) things that happen in my head that I have to follow. One is inspiration, it may come all at once and all at the wrong time, but it is the source of all of the good in life. The other is instinct, and the only way I can separate it from intuition is that it relates to what is around me, it is tangible, where inspiration is intangible. I have to pay attention to inspiration in the same way I watch tele, read books, run or so on. It is something to engage with, but not to replace life with. Instinct on the other hand is life, it should take up time, it should be pushed unrelentingly from thought to action and out into the world. It may be similar to inspiration, it may feel loose and fantastical at times, but the difference is that where inspiration can transport you across time and space into scenarios that you could only dream of, instinct is offering you a path in the real world, guiding you somewhere that may be unknown but will be tangible.

The journey should be done in conjunction with proper structure, time and probably most importantly there should be a level of co-operation. These are things I have learnt from comparing my false starts to my lengthier travels. Co-operation is often where I fall back. The form it takes can be slight, but it has to be there in some form: in making Clove Hitch there was no collaboration on the back-end, but by structuring a personal project around interviews I had external validation and a little more pressure. In terms of structure, hopefully the SMART Goals can handle that. First, I will split (spit?) my thoughts into columns of inspiration & instinct. Some will sound very random because I do not have time to give context.