crisis?
Put on your diving goggles and keep swimming
“Even though it looks like we're all underwater, it's time to learn how to swim.” /Blub
I discovered it on a house wall in Florence:
Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. Dipped in blue paint, as if underwater. With diving goggles.
A few streets away: Verdi with a top hat. Van Gogh.
All submerged – part of the series “L'Arte sa nuotare” by the anonymous street artist Blub. Art can swim.
Blub transforms icons of art history into silent sources of encouragement. On electrical boxes, gas regulators, metal doors.
The materials: paper, paste, temporary paint. This art will and should fade, yet it leaves its mark.
Blub's art does not speak of perfection, but of the beauty of the
transient. And of the ability to swim, even when the current gets stronger.
“We can choose to be stuck with fear due to the crisis or we can choose to take it as an opportunity to overcome our limitations while being confident in the future and in our potential.” /Blub
These words are perfectly suited to our times.
Because it often feels as if we are collectively underwater.
Climate crisis, wars, exhaustion, social division.
A world that challenges us and sometimes overwhelms us.
And yet, when you look at Blub's characters, you sense something different.
No heaviness. No panic. Instead, calmness. Presence. A quiet form of confidence.
“Let #confidence grow” is the motto of the current Mental Health Week. What a powerful invitation.
And to stay with Blub's words: confidence is a choice. It grows when we don't let fear paralyze us, but learn to swim.
For Blub, art is the resource that sustains us: creativity as trust in our own creative power.
And when we consciously draw on our inner and social resources, we experience exactly that: more self-efficacy, more stability—and trust in ourselves.
"Life is born from water—it is the hidden side of matter.
When you are immersed, the moment stops and there is no weight, while thoughts flow in a suspended dimension." /Blub
Don't swim faster. Don't fight the current.
Instead, flow with the water and sometimes just let yourself sink into weightlessness.
This calmness gives rise to new strength and clarity.
What else is needed for this?
Strengthening rituals and spaces where we can share what gives us confidence. .
And people who remind us:
We are all part of this ocean.
No one swims alone.
#MentalHealth #Crisis
