When the World Ends Only Babies Should Float

Rooted in historical painting, myth and narrative, ‘When the World Ends Only Babies Should Float’ imagines a survival pod for the innocent to outlive the world as it descends into ecological chaos. Based on the so-called survival of a baby ‘Beatrix de Rijke’ during the 1421 Sint Elizabethan flood of the Biesbosch National Park, this work looks for a way to offer care to a future generation facing climate collapse. The part crib, part life-vest, part wearable home becomes a companion, the user breathes life into the pod by inflating it and in return the pod holds and cares for its user. By embodying protection in soft, creaturely form, it reflects on the strange acceptance of the climate crisis in our collective imagination, asking what survival might mean if tenderness, rather than control, were our guiding perspectives.