Abridged 0 – 32: Lockjaw

So what happens when we’re blinded by our sun? Caught in the headlights of someone or something, stark and still as a rabbit on the road, terrified that we won’t live up to expectations or make the grade? Conversely what happens when so sure of our confidence to acquire what we want and to ride out the storm we ignore or don’t care about the warning signs? We perceive danger as distant, as far off as the sky itself. We contract our gaze and choose ignorance for ease. The human condition is to please. Perhaps we are so scared of loneliness that we will sacrifice everything to avoid its grasp, even if in our heart we know the impossibility of escaping it.

Originating from a poem based on John Singer Sargent’s painting Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, a portrait that characterised the confidence of the aspiring upper-middle class in the decades before the catastrophic events of WW1, Abridged 0 – 32: Lockjaw sees us continuing our exploration of the psyche and the fragility of our personal landscapes as they explode into disappointment and uncertainty.

Lockjaw is about denial and wilful ignorance on both an individual and a group level and how unconsciously there’s a part of us that wills us towards disaster. This issue explores our need to be loved, our need to be wanted, our need to be a part of something, to be overwhelmed by a person or philosophy…and the terrible clarity when the consequences of our actions become apparent. This issue is about love, hate and the consequences of giving into the spectacle of something or someone. We cannot speak of ends yet to come, we do not have the will. We do not have the words.

A free PDF of the issue can be found below: