31 MAY - 24 JUNE 2023
FELTDARK

DEBORAH WHITE
EVERLASTING HAPPINESS

Everlasting Happiness is a video project that uses humour and fantasy to entertain the utopian idea of love as a political concept. The underlying philosophy of this aspiration is to love the most distant. This is not a sentimental notion of love. It is a robust kind of love with a revolutionary power. Viewing the actions of love as a deployment of force, this work intertwines supernatural wonder with the spectacle of war. The playful and vibrant performance-based video depicts an anarcho-mystic quest battling against the pathology of the post-truth world. Featuring fictitious characters that defy the rational world, the video is infused with flower power, music and animal warriors that open the heart to hope and joy. On a global scale, the project reflects on a war against the forces driving towards a dystopia. As the political is also personal, all the characters are performed by the artist—serving as a self-reflection on the internal struggle to love unconditionally. With the transformative power of love, this work strives for the idealistic desire of a utopian non-place of the imagination. (Sound design is by Jamie Coghill.)