This poem by Elisabeth Sweet blossomed from an inquiry: What is the job of an artist?
Elisabeth sat with this question for some time, away from the city, vehemently not traveling for five months. The conclusion she came to was: An artist’s job is to never be satisfied.
But she didn’t love that answer. Because if you’re never satisfied, you’re always hungry. If you’re always hungry, you’re never full. If you’re never full, it’s a challenge to be grateful. And she took issue with that because gratitude is important to her.
And so the inquiry continued and evolved, inviting other questions of varying depths. From a particular set of these questions, the poem you see here erupted. Three of those questions which help give context to the work are:
What am I?
What are you?
What do we always have?
Now, the poem is just one word.
enough
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.PNG | 1920×1080 | 2025
Made through ritual by Elisabeth Sweet on March 15, 2025 | 108 repetitions of the word “enough” handwritten on a digital canvas and made visible in their place at the end of the ritual
The performance of the work is a chant meditation of the poem with the accompaniment of a shruti box. Elisabeth Sweet premiered the work in a performance at Ladbroke Hall in London on April 23, 2025 as part of the theVERSEverse poetry symposium, re:VERSE, co-hosted by theVERSEverse & The Tezos Foundation, held in partnership with The Collectors Club, Muse Frame, Digital Art Week, and The Disruptive Gallery.