From 25th to 29th May 2026, the Larks & Ravens exhibited their cardboard ‘gods of our time’ at Bath Arts Fringe Festival . Our gods offer just one of many possible manifestations of the invisible concepts which shape or distort our thinking, values, politics and everyday culture. We hope that by making them ‘real’, it will stimulate conversations about these important topics.
Each day of our godshed exhibition featured a different ‘god of the day‘ as host for a ‘Question of the day’. We invited visitors to respond to the god and their question through conversation, drawing, writing or in making their own imaginal beings to bring alive concepts which shape thinking and culture and further populate this space.
Sadly the nature of the exhibition space and the drop in format for visitors didn’t facilitate making of further gods but the gods and their questions certainly triggered thought provoking conversations and written responses. One young woman so appreciated the questions that she used her lunch break each day to visit and reflect on the day’s question and offer a written response which often led to further discussion.
Here are just a few of the responses inspired by different gods and their questions on different days:-
God of the day – Convenience
Question of the Day : What has modern convenience given us and what has it taken away?
“Take away coffee!”… …”but I guess that’s all about the individual on the go, not about taking time to share a coffee with a friend.”
“Life is so convenient that we don’t need to interact with one another any more… and as a young person, I am lonely. Inconvenience is community. Inconveniencing yourself for others is friendship. If only we could be less scared of inconveniencing others and be more willing to be inconvenienced ourselves.”
“Does convenience compromise creativity?”
“Modern day convenience has taken away grit. Grit is important because life in general is not convenient and grit is needed to go through life”
“Assisted dying is convenient”
God of the Day : Nuance
Question of the Day : How do we talk to people we strongly disagree with?
“We never know what’s deep inside others where spirit meets bone. It’s good to remind ourselves of that when emotions rise to the surface”
“I’m hopeless at it and just avoid them. I hate confrontation.. Am actually frightened of it “
“If you’ve had no enemies, you’ve stood for nothing”
“On social media, you’re not able to change your mind!”
“Without humour, Brits are just miserable!”
God of the day – Justice
Question of the Day : How do you decide what’s right and what’s wrong?
“Because someone tells you previously in life examples and you use that for future choices”
“Do I listen to my brain or my stomach?”
“How do you decide who suffers and who doesn’t?”
“Childhood experience is especially important in the development of morals and value”
God of the day – Luck
Question of the Day : Are we lucky or unlucky to be living when we are?
“There are so many opportunities available and rights I can have because I’m alive. But some of the time, I feel so unlucky because of all the unfairness in the world and all the problems that are all getting larger and seem impossible. So, lucky, yes but maybe unhappy and hopeless”
“…the modern day is what it is. In 50 years time, we may look back at 2026 and lament how good we had it or we may cringe at how bad it was!”
“In the West bigotry and hate feels as though it’s on the rise which is concerning though arguably the fact people can call it out and have their voices heard is something lucky”
“Lucky in some ways, unlucky in others. Lucky that I live in modern times with access to health care and relatively equal rights. Unlucky in that it feels like the world is falling apart although it maybe always has been”
God of the day – Progress
Question of the Day : What has progress given us and what has it taken away?
“Children nowadays are learning that they can just use AI and they don’t need to think and this “progress” is taking away their potential future skills. Progress is wonderful when we can use it to develop ourselves”
“It’s allowed me to work from anywhere…but it’s harder to be a team”
“As technology takes over, we must not lose the power of being human”
“Progress puts pressure on us to be more productive”
“Progress has been made possible by division of labour. We are able to get really good at X because other people are good at ABC. But this is not resilient if ABC were no longer provided to us, we would no longer to do them ourselves”
God of the Day – Meritocracy
Question of the Day : Does climbing the ladder motivate you?
“Once you’ve climbed to the top of the graph of progress and achieved the goal… what happens when you fall?”
“What if we thought in circles? – that we were able to evolve more naturally, life becomes death, all living things end and acceptance of this could calm the unrealistic goals”
“What do we value as a society?
“Climbing the ladder” is a monetary phrase but do we as humans climb other ladders? Is success money or morality?”
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Thank you to Bath Arts Fringe Festival and to all the visitors who came and responded to the different gods and their questions on 5 different days.
