I wanted to say that I am sorry

In I wanted to tell you that I am sorry, I overlayed the words of climate activist/therapist Stuart Capstick, in a conversational cadence, atop video and sounds of nature. The text hangs heavy over white noise, bird sounds, and lush images of the outdoors.

Capstick’s writing—a speculative letter written in 2019 to his children in the near future—acutely captures the weight of living in this moment of anticipatory, pre-traumatic climate stress.

As difficult as these words are to read, I hope they help viewers put a name to the emotions so many of us are already experiencing. Climate, like other grief, can be isolating , but through recognition of similar feelings in others, we can better see that we are not alone in this crisis.

• Title

  I wanted to say that I am sorry

• Materials

  video, text from “A Letter to My Kids”, Stuart Capstick, 2019

• Size

  4’ W x 3’ H

• Status

  Shown in NAVEL (San Francisco, 2024), Pleased to Meet You (San Francisco, 2024)

---

A Letter to My Kids (I hope they’ll never have to read)

Stuart Capstick

Apr 5, 2019

To my favourite, funny little people

What can I say, now that it’s too late?

I can tell you the obvious: that I’m sorry, that I tried.

I can tell you how sorry I am, that it ate me up. That even as we sat in bed with the nightlight on, reading together about coral reefs and finding Dory, I knew there was not much time left for those bright and beautiful places.

I can tell you that I tried, that even though it felt hopeless, still if there was any chance left then I wasn’t going to quit. I can tell you that this is why we always took the train, why I pestered politicians, why we changed what we ate, why I got myself arrested that time.

But what I really want you to know: that the hardest thing was living through a time when we could have turned this around, but that most people just carried on as if it didn’t matter.

There will be a thousand explanations for this. You’ll hear that people were selfish, that we were trapped in a consumer culture, that our politicians were craven servants of fossil fuels, that the media didn’t keep us informed, too preoccupied with dance contests, fashions and trivia.

There is something in all of this, but I want you to know what it felt like at the time. It felt like a dream, where everything seemed so normal, but where under the surface there was a horrible and brutal truth we all pretended didn’t exist. Hardly anyone even spoke about climate change and the destruction of the natural world. If you did, more often than not the conversation would be shut down, familiar devices pulled out of nowhere to dismiss, sidetrack, and silence your concerns.

And outside, the world — the thoughtless, concrete and metal, fume-choked, all-consuming human world — rumbled on, deaf to the warnings and unwilling to lift a finger.

I want to tell you that I am sorry, and that I tried.

Your dad,

Stuart