The Big Equalizer explores the deep perceptual shift we undergo when subjected to the terror ensued by the unpredictability of an earthquake. Where the ground is solid and home is shelter, the ground trembles and home are an obstacle course. The furniture we rely on for comfort is traded for the safety that negative spaces around it may afford, our possessions no longer carry value but slow us down and we share with strangers’ solace and comfort.
The Big Equalizer invites you to reinterpret what we understand as safety, and to inhabit the space the way we do when the relationship between our body and the built environment is upended, when our mind is struck with terror and decision making is crucial. Crouch by the couch, take shelter under the table or stand under the doorframe — we don’t pretend to know what is better.
By examining our basic instinct for survival from a perceptual standpoint, we hope to bring awareness to the constructs we create that alienate us — the human as alien to the natural, the social as alien to the ecological and humans as aliens to each other.