Injected Joy

I recently saw a headline reading “‘Woke’ people more likely to be unhappy, anxious and depressed, new study suggests.” Later I saw the same headline made into a bunch of memes that boiled down to “educated people have more informed concerns!” Woke or not, It’s hard to live nowadays and not be affected by the state of society. Sometimes it really feels like it is crumbling: women’s reproductive rights being taken away, trans people’s lives under attack, wanna-be dictators on the ballot, and the list goes on. 

This series of photographs is a response, albeit a tongue in cheek response, to the depression and angst that comes from bearing witness. I like toying with the idea of enforced joy. Sometimes joy does not come naturally. What if it could be medically injected or ingested or just forced inside? I also really love using glitter and sugar in work which, at its core, is about sadness.