Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst utilises materials common to prepping culture to develop artworks which engage with individuated emergency preparedness. Day’s portable, waterproof, handstitched works derive from infographic ‘how to’ survival diagrams. These large-scale tarpaulin diagrams reflect the embedded desire within emergency preparation for order, while suggesting the highly individuated nature of such practices. Trail markers and ground-to-air support signals are clustered throughout the space, traditionally temporary markers, Day instead fixes these coded signs of optimism and disaster in aluminium. 20L plastic bucket lights illuminate a sleeping bag whose fluorescent interior acts as an emergency signal flag, the surface of which is grided with handstitched S.A.S Survival Handbook iconography. Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst invites the viewer to consider the ways in which emergency preparedness may operate on an individual level, and what these modes of material practice may offer.

Jess Day is an artist, writer and technician currently completing her PhD at Curtin University as a recipient of the Art in Conflict PhD Stipend Scholarship. Day’s practice develops methods of engaging with emergency preparedness, sculpture, ‘wilderness’ and making do. Day has exhibited locally and interstate and written for various art publications. The Art in Conflict Stipend Scholarship is funded by the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry at Curtin University as part of the university’s contribution to the Art in Conflict Linkage project.