All the Things (2020) is a neon sculpture by artist, writer and performance maker Tim Etchells, the full text for which reads ‘All the Things which Could Happen Next’. Here, as elsewhere in his work with neon and LED Etchells’ draw on his broader artistic fascinations, exploring contradictory aspects of language – the speed, clarity and vividness with which it communicates narrative, image and ideas, and at the same time its amazing propensity to create a rich field of openness and uncertainty and ambiguity.

In the particular case of All the Things Etchells invokes the idea of future possibilities in diverse contexts and at different scales, opening the question of the future in terms of small events and large ones, personal and intimate happenings as well as broad social changes or actions. More than anything, perhaps, the bold declaration of the work makes transparent the unknown nature of the future, and the fragility of our personal and social certainties. None of us knows what will happen next. In drawing attention to this, and in underscoring the diverse and uncertain possibilities of the future Etchells asks us to consider our own agency in future events as they unfold.