Available at https://berryy4.wordpress.com/


Getting the opportunity to be a set designer in the current era is both a blessing and a curse. I often find myself immersed in my current creation, whether it's a period drama or a box that glows and transcends time and space. Yet, amidst the paint brushes and glamorous actors, there looms an altogether bigger issue. A threat that transcends the stress of where my next paycheck will come from, but instead causes conflict for every life around mine. This threat, in my humble opinion, is the biggest threat to humankind. It separates us from one another while simultaneously pitting us against each other. It stops us from wanting to progress into better people and create a brighter, kinder future. It is the silent epidemic of apathy and indifference that poses the gravest danger to our collective future.

Our world has a new-found lack of passion. Every generation before ours has had a certain passion about them, whether it be fighting for your country in the 40s, or chasing and burning witches way back in the 14th to 17th century. German expressionist films in the 1920s created “groundbreaking filmmaking techniques [that] have impacted films across genres” as so beautifully said by Kat Bello of The Collector, and branched off into what we know as Hollywood’s “film noir”. 60’s hippies cared about their environment and the people in it, “reject[ing] the mores of mainstream American life”, as according to Alicja Zelazko of The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. And yet, since then our passion for life seems to be diminishing.

In this “Anthropocene” era, according to David Attenborough, “humans have changed the climate so much that we are no longer in the Holocene epoch "the 12,000-year period of climatic stability that allowed humans to settle, farm and create civilizations" but are now in the […] "Age of Humans."” as Stephanie Pappas from Live Science explains Attenborough’s words. This era has only recently begun, and I believe it is definitely going to be the very tip of the speedily melting iceberg (global-warming pun intended) that will melt down and drown us all if we do not do something about it. 

But how are we meant to “do something about it” if our generation simply does not care? An influx of forward thinking, selfless and passionate minds is what everyone needs to be able to have a future worth fighting for. 

Pappas, S. Live Science (2019) David Attenborough Warns That Earth Has Entered 'Age of Humans'. Available at: https://www.livescience.com/64570-attenborough-warns-earth-entered-anthropocene.html#:~:text=22 (Accessed: 23 April 2024)

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023) Hippie. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/hippie  (Accessed 23 April 2024)

Bello, K. (2023) How Did German Expressionism Shape Film Noir? Available at: https://www.thecollector.com/german-expressionism-film-noir/ (Accessed: 23 April 2024)