Anxious Creatures (2021)
Card deck (32) sold at Retropolis, Squish Face and The Anxiety Shop
Public art exhibition at The Dirty Dozen Art Space and as a street poster run for 4 weeks (250 posters in Naarm Melbourne)
Anxious Creatures is an illustrated deck of cards depicting cartoon characters experiencing intrusive thoughts. Using humour and cartoon logic, the project explores the paradox of how thoughts work, particularly the strange, unwanted ideas that can appear in our minds without invitation. By making these thoughts visible and absurd, the cards act as a conversation starter, helping bring the shame around “secret thoughts” into the open, where it loses much of its power.
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The project began as a series of illustrated cards designed like tarot cards and packaged in a deliberately clinical style. During the COVID lockdowns, over 100 decks were sold online, finding audiences looking for ways to talk about anxiety and mental health.
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The creatures then moved into public space as a street poster campaign, encountered by people on their daily lockdown walks. Later, the cards were exhibited at large scale in Dirty Dozen at the Flinders Street Station underpass, where thousands of commuters encountered them.
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The public response to the project ultimately inspired my next major work, The Anxiety Shop, where the cards were exhibited and sold alongside other humorous objects designed to broach the subject of anxious thinking.
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