Senan Lee and Pansy Aung were just two London artists having a fleeting conversation about work/life balance when, as it all too often does, inspiration struck. “We decided to visualize our feelings about the life of being creatives in a physical sculpture,” Pansy writes. And so, The Diving Bell was born.
The sculpture itself holds little purpose, but the passion and idea is one of the more honest depictions of what it means to be a living, working creative. “For anyone who comes up with ideas on a daily basis, the act of putting on your own ‘Diving Bell’ is the time you use to discover, search and generate ideas,” the duo writes. “Its windows are your visual eyes to the world. The air space is where you have to think – your lifeline to survival. It not only represents the physiological pressure of coming up with ideas on demand, but the weight of the pressure you put on yourself for consistent excellence.”
Raise your hand if you’ve felt such pressure (waving over here!). Sometimes, the unseen pressures are the most weighty, and the doubt and fear that arrive alongside of such pressure can send anyone into an anxiety-induced state of panic. Yet Pansy and Senan created their sculpture from cardboard, hoping to give “a sense of lightness and frivolousness to what could be a foreboding experience.” After all, we’re creatives. Let’s have some fun, right?
The diving bell comes equipped with slats to allow the outside world “an intimate view into this secretive space” while simultaneously emphasizing the need for creatives to absorb as much as possible. The pair writes, “In a world where ideas can be inspired by anything, ignorance is death. For the longer it takes to come up with the idea, the longer you wait to take it off.”
Amen. Here’s to an inspired weekend of ideas, cardboard and your own diving bell. All the beauty, none of the pressure. Cheers, friends.
Image Credits: Salt and Pepper Creative
p.s. No overthinking allowed.