The Worm at the Core
Oct- Nov 2022, SET WoolwichCurated by Cristiano Di Martino and Conor Ackhurst
“Man is a worm and food for worms. This is the paradox: he is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a body that once belonged to a fish (and still carries the gill-marks to prove it). His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly rot and disappear forever.”
Excerpts from: E.Becker, The Denial of Death
American Philosopher William James wrote that awareness of our inevitable, unavoidable death is ‘The Worm at the Core” of human consciousness.
How can we learn to live happily while being intelligently aware of our impending doom? Does knowledge of death affects the decisions we make every day, and how can we stop fear and anxiety overwhelming us in spite of this awareness?
Creating order, rituals and symbols, we infuse our lives with stability, significance, and purpose. Enabling us to perceive that we are persons of value in a world of meaning, and hence eligible for literal and/or symbolic immortality.
‘The Worm at the Core’ is a group show in which we invited artists to consider how fear of death impacts our day to day life and individual decisions.
CONOR ACKHURST / LAURA BENSON / ANNA CLEGG / JAMES DAVISON / MARC-AURÈLE DEBUT / CRISTIANO DI MARTINO / ALI GLOVER / MARIE- LOUISE JONES / ANNA- LENA KRAUSE / LAYLA SIMNER LOCK / ROMANA LONDI / GEORGE HENRY LONGLY / ANDREA LUCCHESI / ISABEL MACCARTHY / BENJAMIN MURPHY / ELLA JOY NELSON / JANEK NIXON / THORN NULTY / ROBERT O'LEARY/ SALVO PIONE / GORGE RICHARDSON / CATRIONA ROBERTSON / JAKOB ROWLINSON / ALESSANDRO SCHNEIDER / LOULOU SIEM / SHINUK SUH / MIA VALLANCE / JENKIN VAN ZYL / FELIX VILLIERS / JACK WARNE