Shelter

April 2^nd 2023

As I wove the vines over the past two months for the roof of ‘Shelter ‘I was reminded of Abraham Maslows ‘Hierrarchy of Basic Needs’.

Maslow identified our basic needs (our psychological needs) as food, drink, shelter, clothes and warmth.

He saw these basic needs as paramount as our survival depends on them and until they are fulfilled we cannot progress to higher needs that enable us as individuals to eventually reach our full potential.

Another essential basic need Maslow identified is our need for safety and shelter; more than a resting place all creatures and individuals need shelter.

It is this later fundamental basic need that this installation addresses.

When you look at Maslow’s table of needs it reminds us of how here in the Western World the majority of us have most of our lower basic needs met ….food, water, shelter, security and safety. But do we?

What of the displaced refugees (we bear witness to this daily and the western world either ignores it or enables it ) the homeless and the millions and millions denied the most basic needs one of which is shelter.

Here in my adopted country we see an escalating number of people without shelter…the homeless which makes their security and safety precarious.

These people and the refugees displaced around the world are people who are denied their definitive basic needs and the opportunity to attempt to reach their full potential let alone conceive it.

How do we endorse this, how do we reconcile this as fellow humans?