Chance of Pain, designed by Rachel Simmons and written by Chrissy Kolaya, 2024. Limited edition artist’s book with digital prints on Mohawk and Reeves BFK. Magnetic paper box enclosure lined with kozo paper. Edition of 10, signed by the artists. Closed dimensions, 4” x 4” x .5”, open dimensions 8” x 8” x 48”.

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We’re all tempted, seduced by the question: what will happen next? Especially in times of anxiety and uncertainty, we crave someone or something who can tell us what’s coming. Chance of Pain is part of an ongoing collaborative project which uses adapted text from the Economist magazine’s “The World Ahead,” an issue described by its editors as a “guide to the coming year,” including “future gazing analysis, predictions and speculation.” Through interdisciplinary collaboration, Simmons and Kolaya use unusual combinations of found text and images to challenge the idea that we can ever meaningfully predict the future, that we can ever make sense and order out of an uncertain future.

Giving herself the constraint of working only with text from a single article: ““Cloudy with a Chance of Pain” by Roger McShane, China Editor, the Economist “The World Ahead 2023” issue, November 11, 2022, Kolaya chose, omitted, and rearranged text into a found poem, “Chance of Pain” that calls to mind images of political despots eager to “reshape the world/in a way that would please autocrats,” and warns us that “observers must be careful not to predict an outcome/just because it would be to their liking.”

Simmons paired the poem with altered photos culled from old issues of National Geographic and Sumi-e ink drawings, both placed together with the text in an elongated lotus-fold book, a playful structure which invites readers to experiment with making their own meaning as they manipulate the pages of the book.

This project has been awarded support from the University of Central Florida’s Women and Gender Studies Program’s Gloria Anzaldúa Research Excellence Award.