You Are Not Enough (And Other Affirmations) Installation for “Dreams and Nightmares”
This piece was created for a building-wide takeover show where each floor embodied either a dream or a nightmare. I was assigned the nightmare floor, so I asked myself: what’s my biggest nightmare?
The answer was loud and clear: that I’m not enough.
That spiraled into a reflection on the toxic optimism of Instagram affirmations, the pastel-hued, perfectly kerned quotes telling us to love ourselves more, hustle harder, stay grateful. So I flipped the script.
I created a wall of warped, disfigured affirmation posters, twisted versions of those feel-good messages, glitching under the pressure of their contradictions. Above it, a glowing neon sign pulsed with the words “You Are Not Enough.”
The neon was reactive to sound. Visitors could connect their phones, play music, and dance in front of the piece. It became a kind of ritual, filming yourself dancing under a sign that contradicts every curated self-help post on social media. A celebration of inadequacy. A rejection of toxic positivity. A nightmare dressed as an influencer trap.
