Ryan Gander Hope is a discipline - An Apology (They will only encourage you to perform the script), 2026

Ryan Gander's Hope is a discipline - An Apology (They will only encourage you to perform the script) consists of an animatronic puppet resembling a small-scale look-a-like of the artist. The puppet appears to be resting on a garbage bag. Moving his head from side to side and taking regular breaths, the toy-like representation of the artist sighs and groans softly.

The text spoken by the puppet, written by Ryan Gander, revolves around the life sayings of a friend's father — a factory worker from Liverpool who secretly wanted to be a poet, whose proverbs reflected a stoic way of living. From there, Gander reflects on the paradox of modern privilege: those no longer required to fight for survival fill that freed-up time with anxiety and self-optimization. He apologizes for this personally and on behalf of others, closing with the thought that hope, in the words of Mariame Kaba, is a discipline. The puppet continues the idea of a fictional alter ego that Gander has developed in earlier works such as the 'little stinker', though here in a more hopeful register — a figure who acknowledges his anxieties and privileges, and ultimately turns toward hope as a practice.