Exhibition: ON EDGE: Living in an Age of Anxiety

ON EDGE: Living in an Age of Anxiety reflects on individual experiences, the environmental and societal factors that can cause worry or stress and explores our evolutionary impulse to be on alert.

Drawing on research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London, the season reflects the perspectives of a range of artists, scientists, young people and those with lived experience of anxiety. The free exhibition includes many new commissions developed by artists working in collaboration with researchers from King’s.

“King’s College London is home to outstanding mental health research, including on the causes and effects of anxiety,” said Professor Thalia Eley, Professor of Developmental Behavioural Genetics at King’s, and ON EDGE Season Advisor. “This season brings new perspectives to a phenomenon that affects so many of us. ON EDGE invites visitors to reflect on their own wellbeing in a wider context.”

“The exhibition takes as its starting point that we all experience anxiety at some point in our lives,” said curator-producer Mette Kjærgaard Præst. “We aim to open up a critical conversation about the causes of and responses to anxiety in contemporary society. ON EDGE makes visible the possible connections between individual experiences and the wider societal conditions that frame them.”



ON EDGE foregrounds the varied ways that people live with anxiety. Many of the featured artists draw on their own experiences to consider how individuals experience anxiety and develop creative coping mechanisms. Some of the artistic/academic collaborations will explore the relationship between sleep and anxiety; how we can destigmatise sensitive conversations around mental health; and what the emotional state of anxiety might look like if portrayed using sound and light.

The season also considers how our noisy, interconnected and uncertain world affects our wellbeing on a collective level. ON EDGE features work that explores broader social questions around experiencing and addressing anxiety. Examples include collaborations considering the complex ways that our urban environment affects our individual psychological state; the emotional role of anxiety in society; and how we study, measure and support mental health conditions.