Ben Crothers

Ben Crothers
http://prestosketching.com

Twitter http://twitter.com/bencrothers
LinkedIn https://au.linkedin.com/in/bencrothers
Instagram http://instagram.com/prestosketching

Event
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/22/why-we-might-not-get-a-coronavirus-vaccine

Tell us about the work...  
I can’t help but be suspicious of how everyone seems to be looking to a vaccine as the way out of the whole COVID-19 situation. It's crucial we do find one, of course, but it's only part of the solution. As a collective, we can't just 'pop a pill' and move on. I'm hoping that visualising things like this can expose these unspoken assumptions, and help encourage people to think more broadly.

Event
Open Democracy article: Degrowth: New Roots for the Economy

URL to the original content
https://twitter.com/prestosketching/status/1263402813477937154?s=21

Tell us about the work...
For weeks now, it has been bugging me how the ‘powers that be’ just seemed to be operating under the same way of thinking as before COVID-19 struck, being so anxious to get back to the way things were before. But it’s the ‘way things we’re before’ that has given rise to the virus in the first place! And then I read this great article and call to action on Open Democracy, called ‘Degrowth: New Roots for the Economy’ (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/degrowth-new-roots-economy/). It crystallised what is been thinking, and I just had to commit it to a drawing, a sketchnote. At least the first opening salvo, anyway.

I wanted to raise awareness of how our growth-obsessed economy is rapacious and unstoppable... just like a virus.
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I sketch in Procreate on an iPad all the time, and I’ve been playing with different colour schemes, so this was a good opportunity to try a scheme that was a bit ‘serious’, without being alarmist.
I think the visual community has done an amazing job globally, of inspiring each other with visual messages of optimism and encouragement. We have helped the world learn, and understand our current predicament. But I think now is the time we need to help the world understand our future predicament. And the choice me must make, and encourage our leaders to make. To not assume that the previous way is the right way. That this should be a massive wake-up call for change.