PUSH—THE PRESSURE TO PERFORM

The pressure to perform, to create, to deliver becomes an unrelenting force shaping the mental landscape of artists, designers, writers, and performers. This installation is an exploration of that burden, an interrogation of reality itself, and a meditation on the ways technology infiltrates human dialogue.

Projected onto a divided screen, several individuals engage in a conversation, voicing their struggles with creative pressure and its impact on mental health. They share experiences of self-doubt, expectation, and exhaustion. But hidden among them are some who do not exist: AI-generated figures, indistinguishable in appearance, yet fractured in speech.

Beyond this technological difference, the installation reveals the unseen weight of creative labor and process. Society romanticizes artistic work, celebrating the output while overlooking the emotional toll of the process. By bringing together individuals from different creative fields and backgrounds, this piece sheds light on the silent struggles of those expected to constantly perform. This is confrontation with our own perceptions: of what is real, what is constructed, and what lies hidden beneath the surface of what we see.