Karin Elsu – Portfolio

85% of the people on Earth believes there is a higher meaning to life, ‘something’ out there, something before birth and after death, even a God. So why is it so difficult for us to be here?

It seems the majority of us are constantly looking for and employing escape routes so we don’t have to deal with the pain of being human. If we are so confident about a higher meaning, why can’t we just be here and be present, knowing that in one way or another life is as it should be?

Numbing the pain through drugs, alcohol, or shopping, to name a few, doesn’t make it go away. Like little children covering their eyes with their hands, we have not transformed the pain, only dulled the ache by disconnecting with the now.

I’ve chosen in this body of work to focus on the escape routes people use. I’ve combined the autumn garden with plastic dolls as props to capture the mood of how we feel while trying to numb the pain. The majority of people who crossed my path at this time while I was sticking syringes in roses and running dolls over with my car were quite shocked. I found that interesting. I think we all use escape routes in some ways, perhaps in moderation it even helps keeping us sane, but we seem to find it scary to even discuss them.

Escape routes are not always bad. Sometimes they create the breathing space that keeps us sane. Unchecked they can take over your life and even become emergency exits.

My wish is for people to recognize their own escape routes and perhaps consider which ones are serving them. But also to find in their hearts a greater compassion for people who choose the more drastic and sometimes fatal escape routes. Maybe they can’t help it. Maybe they are just too vulnerable to face life.