11 x 17 poster print
i live in a world and the world is great
Jai Stephenson, 2025
11x17”, fine art smooth matte
Print sale proceeds will go to Minneapolis Northside Mutual Aid.
This work was created as part of Art Prints 4 Mutual Aid, a project with support provided by the Visual Arts Fund, administered by Midway Contemporary Art with generous funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York. Four artists were chosen to participate, and each artist created new work with guidance and mentorship centered around trans-national solidarity and international mutual aid movements. Print sales proceeds will go to mutual aid organizations of each artist's choosing.
Jai Stephenson artist statement:
Somewhere,
A bomb greets a city
With the light of a rising sun
And its people prepare their hearts for the mournings.
All the times in a day the sun can rise
Somewhere
A child builds sand castles
out of ashes and dust
While their friends play Chuka in remnants of a schoolhouse
All times in a day innocence is lost and found.
When the powers that be,
tired from playing house
begin to play god
What of the people?
The children?
I Live in a World and the World is Great is a two-part examination of our collective existence. To live in a world is to be held here with your job, my house, our trees, hopes and dreams on a floating rock orbiting in the middle of intergalactic nowhere. And what have we done with this miracle? Filled the astronomical chances of life with madness, sadness, illness, realness, magic, healing, enchantment, and brilliant children. Through vulgar imagery and ironic word play this piece invites the audience to consider whether our world is a Wasteland or Wonderland.
The concept for I Live in a World and the World is Great was born from persistent existential dread mixed with a hint of being high in a playground after hours. There exists a stark contradiction with the violent and extractive adult world we exist in and a child’s orientation to the world laced with wonder, imagination, play, and creativity. In 2025, we are collectively witnessing a globalized economy invested in White supremacy - warfare, militarized police forces, environmental destruction for quick profit.
The succession of beautiful ironic and painful images used to craft this piece were extracted from geographic, historic, anthropological books and magazines, and then seated in contrast to vivid paint, cut outs from children's books, and the whimsical positioning and disposition of the subjects.