The Jealousy Issue

An exploration of one of the most shameful emotions. Through the work of some amazing artists and writers (such as Elif Shafak and Juno Calypso), Tummy Ache excavates the reasons for our cultural feelings towards jealousy, creating an encyclopaedia of the emotion as felt by London’s most exciting creatives.

Jealousy is insidious, secretive, and poisonous if held onto for too long. We ache to be the subject of someone else’s jealousy, a cultural signifier that we are successful and desirable. Yet, this cultural mythology asserts that in order for this success to inspire meanness in others it must be in short supply. If they’re jealous of me, I must be the lucky one; the profiteer of romance, love, safety, success, access, freedom. 

Jealousy often applies to the aspects of life that validate our humanity, we’re jealous of things that in many ways should be a given, and that when withheld impinge on our sense of wholeness.