Looking at it today, in times of pandemic, it has a premonitory taste, if we consider that the artist started thinking about it and making it in 2015. And at the same time, right at the height of contagion catastrophe literature, the video art installation An Ongoing Collection of Screen Grabs with Reassuring Subtitles has that particularly reassuring flavor that we all need. The virtual content is offered by MoMA, but the collection of images is also visible on the website of artist Allan McCollume.

The screenshots collected by McCollum, narrate moments in films and TV series where the characters on the screen say, “Everything will be all right”, “You’ll be fine.” “It’s okay.” “It’s ok now.” “Your are gonna be okay.” “You’re gonna be safe.” It’s 1200 stills where you can’t recognize the movie, or the TV series it’s from. There are no precise references in the scenes to time and place, or the plot. There is no precise context, and probably not even necessary because what counts, to launch the message, is the empathy of the people who look at each other, talk to each other and, even in the most tragic moments, with tears in their eyes, or a bloody face, pronounce the phrase: “Everything will be all right”. The images, on the site, flow at a temporary distance of a few seconds from each other and overall the work becomes a litany to be repeated like a mantra to convince themselves that everything will end in the best way. A bit like the happy ending posters on the balconies: to have comfort we need to write it, to read it and to hear that everything will be fine.