My research began with the metacrisis: the sense that our problems are so interconnected that no single cause or solution can be found. This led me to the knot as both material and metaphor, a way to represent entanglement without a clear origin or end. Drawing on Dunne and Raby’s critical design, I became interested in estrangement, making familiar language strange so the present feels less inevitable. I collected fragments from everyday media, like “No results found” and “after years of promises”, and kept them vague, much like fortune cookies, so that each visitor reads them through their own context. By knotting these fragments by hand, visitors become part of the system they are examining. I wanted If Not This, Then… to leave the question open, to be felt rather than answered.