PRESS RELEASE

Exhibition dates: Fri, Jan 10, 2020  Fri, Jan 24, 2020

Press release date 15 Dec 2019

Artist invites anyone feeling lonely to write to her, 

& creates an exhibition about isolated communities in the epidemic of loneliness

International artist Nicola Anthony transforms people’s stories into contemporary artworks. With inner thoughts and unspoken secrets being anonymously aired as large scale ‘text sculptures’ featuring people's words, Anthony’s art over the last ten years has provided a cathartic outlet for many around the world. This year, she has been invited to tell the untold story of loneliness in Ireland in a solo exhibition titled ‘A Desire For Closeness’, commissioned by First Fortnight to be part of their 10th annual festival, which challenges mental health prejudice through the arts.

“You might think it is hard for me to prise stories of aloneness from people, 

but the stories keep fluttering in.”

Nicola Anthony    

During her career Anthony has received letters from thousands of people -  from letters of thanks from genocide survivors after Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation commissioned her to tell the story of Holocaust survivors at the foundation’s new premises in 2018, to letters from inmates at Changi Prison in Singapore whom she mentored and created art with in a project commissioned by the Singapore Art Museum in 2016. Throughout her career she has invited anonymous stories to make art with, and now, Nicola Anthony has welcomed letters from anyone living in Ireland who feels alone. This latest project will be hosted by the prestigious Presentation Arts Centre in County Wexford. 

Anthony has been working with disenfranchised and disconnected communities all over the world, from Singapore to Hong Kong to the USA and Myanmar. Now she has been invited to nestle in a small community in Enniscorthy, Ireland, to share, explore and experience the lives of individuals and communities who deal with loneliness and a feeling of disconnectedness on a daily basis.

Her research over 12 months in the lead up to the exhibition has revealed two areas of focus:

1. “There are many ways that loneliness is experienced:  People have expressed profound loss; paralysis; reclusion or rejection; a quiet yearning; reality-disconnect; depression; a drowning silence; helplessness or hopelessness.

2. It may not be the person who looks most alone who is experiencing the most paralysing isolation.”

Having previously been shortlisted for awards for her work with migrants and foreign workers across Asia and in particular in Singapore where one of her studios is based, it was a natural development for Anthony to start working internationally to tell the stories of migrants and asylum seekers. This led to her reaching out to isolated communities across Ireland, finding that migrants and locals alike can suffer from profound loneliness. 

“In Ireland I met asylum seekers from Asia, and in Singapore I met people whose families had fled from Ireland to Asia during the Irish Troubles. This to me perfectly encapsulated the message that my art tries to tell - that we are all brothers and sisters, that those who are refugees in one place were once everyday citizens in another place, and vice versa. I highlight the threads of commonality between people from all walks of life, in my mission to combat the modern syndrome of only hearing the stories of people who lead similar lives to us.”   

Nicola Anthony

The exhibition opens with a showcase of artworks about the experience of loneliness. The art questions the stigma of feeling like ‘a loner’, exploring the different ways loneliness can be experienced, and airing this unspoken problem which contributes to many mental health issues in Ireland and globally. 

“Loneliness and aloneness are not the same.”

Nicola Anthony

A series of drawings titled Clouded Words take a departure from Anthony’s usual works which consist of narratives. Each drawing is made up of 'pixels' which are, on closer inspection, individual letters. The series uses an absence of coherent language to convey confusion, isolation, or an inability to put into words the way we are feeling. There is a sense of overwhelm and misunderstanding through a cloud of disconnected characters.

In recent years her works on paper have become particularly sought after since being showcased by the Royal Society of Sculptors exhibition ‘Parallel Lines’ (2019, Light Box Museum, London). This exhibition illuminated drawings by the royal sculptors - Anthony’s being crafted in a modular manner, similar to the physical process of building up structures in her large public sculptures around the world.

The exhibition’s central sculptural installation is called Murmuration, the collective noun for a flock of starling birds, and is a collaboration with one of the most celebrated poets of the Irish language, Louis De Paor, who is now the Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland, Galway.  

“The motif of birds in flight came from sketchbook drawings I have been making about migration, using the birds as an allegory for the many people across the world who have had to migrate from their homes and settle in a new village, city, land or community. 

The bird’s coordination is caused by thousands of individual movements and instinctive actions. This phenomenon is called emergent behaviour, where they appear choreographed but are in fact all acting independently. There are parallels with how humans behave in a crowd or as part of a society.”

Nicola Anthony

The poem Fáilte Uí Dhonnchú portrays crowds of people walking past an unseen, homeless, Romanian woman in the street - surrounded by people yet still incredibly alone. The poem itself is displaced, migrating, re-interpreted. A lone bird sits on a plinth below.

A sculpture called Effusion is made from river water in glass ink bottles, with paper labels and white feather quills. An ‘effusion’ is a pouring forth of liquid, or an unrestrained expression of feelings. The water has been collected from rivers, streams, puddles and rainfall across the isolated county of Wexford and further afield. River water has also been used in the ink drawings in the show - a kind of invisible ink. 

During the research process, many of the people who wrote to Anthony about their experiences of being isolated described a feeling of not being able to voice the truth, to talk to other people, or conversely that other people just didn’t understand.    

         The connection had broken down.

“River water as a metaphor for society has been a theme throughout the creation of this exhibition: Everyone is connected, part of Ireland, part of the world... but the river splits and divides; it crosses borders and emerges as streams, puddles and bubbles; it gets gentrified and compartmentalised, stranded and evaporated, and it forgets that each droplet is part of the whole.” 

Nicola Anthony

For the exhibition A Desire For Closeness, every story collected will be printed in a book later in 2020. There is currently a national call-out for stories at humanarchiveproject.com, where you can anonymously bare your soul in as many characters as you need. It’s the opposite of twitter: No judgement and no stigma.

EXHIBITION DATES:

A DESIRE FOR CLOSENESS

Solo exhibition by Nicola Anthony

Fri, Jan 10, 2020  Fri, Jan 24, 2020

The Presentation Arts Centre, Enniscorthy, Wexford, Ireland

The first solo exhibition of Nicola Anthony in Ireland, exploring themes of isolation, loneliness and disconnect.

Book publication: Second half of 2020. Preorders available.

RESOURCES:

Images

Press image media pack - download here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=10TrJQodNpfC8ZQSVciLXr54YQnOV07yp 

Video content:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3-54Q3QmDI&t=1s 

Please request for any specific shot you need or high res images

Contact

press@nicolaanthony.co.uk

Bios & About info: 

Artist Bio: 

Nicola Anthony is a British artist with studios in Singapore and Dublin, and a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors. She has been invited all over the world to work with NGOs, art institutions, public spaces, cultural research bodies & architects to create art which tells important stories, connecting with history, people and places. Last year Nicola was invited to take leave of her studio in Singapore to take up an artist residency in Ireland. Nicola's art has recently featured in the New York Times, Interior Design Magazine & Architectural Record.

In 2020 Nicola's artwork 'Poetry Net' is shortlisted to represent Singapore in the Sovereign Art Prize, meanwhile three Nicola Anthony artworks have been acquired by the Ingram British Art Collection.

In 2018 Nicola was invited by Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation to create a commissioned public sculpture featuring the story of a Holocaust survivor, receiving a personal letter of thanks from Mr Spielberg after he unveiled it in Los Angeles.

In recent years Nicola has had solo exhibitions in Singapore, Myanmar and Ireland, and completed four artist residencies internationally. Her blockbuster moments include a solo show at Singapore Art Museum, taking part in the Kuala Lumpur Biennale, and installing permanent public sculptures in Colorado, Singapore & Los Angeles. 

Working as a professional artist for fifteen years Nicola has created exhibitions & commissions for art institutions & cultural foundations in Ireland, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong, Myanmar, USA, UK, Indonesia, Thailand & Malaysia.

About First Fortnight Festival:

Now in its tenth year, First Fortnight is an arts-based mental health charity and organises its festival annually each January aimed at challenging stigma. The charity was instrumental in founding the European Arts Festival model and helped stage Europe’s first mental health arts festival in Athens, Greece in 2016.  First Fortnight subsequently hosted European Mental Health Arts Festival in communities across Ireland in 2019.  An awareness campaign commencing in the First Fortnight of the year works because we are all a little raw this time of year and more likely to be open to an empathic response.  First Fortnight has become a fixture in the cultural calendar and synonymous with mental health awareness, challenging prejudice and ending stigma. First Fortnight also runs a Centre for Creative Therapies, which provides an art psychotherapy and music therapy service to adults with experience of homelessness or at risk of homelessness. 

About National Office For Suicide Prevention (NOSP)

We would like to gratefully acknowledge the core funding support we receive from the HSE’s National Office of Suicide Prevention, without whom First Fortnight would not be possible.

The National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP) is responsible for the coordination of training initiatives around suicide prevention and mental health promotion in line with Connecting for Life, Ireland’s national strategy to reduce suicide 2015-2020.

About Louis De Paor:

One of the most celebrated poets of the Irish language. A former editor of the acclaimed Irish language journal Innti (founded by Michael Davitt, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Liam Ó Muirthile and Gabriel Rosenstock), he is now the Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at the National University of Ireland, Galway. 

Other texts & quotes:

Nicola Anthony has also been invited by RTÉ, Ireland's national television and radio broadcaster, to share the insight behind the making of her work on their website in an ‘artist’s diary’. Nicola wrote:

“On my journeys to Enniscorthy I observed murmurations of starlings performing a mesmerising dance of togetherness over the River Slaney. This phenomenon is called emergent behaviour: Their apparently choreographed coordination is caused by thousands of individual movements and instinctive actions. Emergence also occurs in water molecules, resulting in its behavior as a liquid - flowing, eddying, tidal. 

There are parallels with how humans behave in a crowd or as part of a society. This observation inspired the central sculpture in the exhibition, featuring birds filling the cavernous ceiling. Beneath sits a solitary bird. 

Each starling is made of words, kindly loaned by Louis De Paor, from his poem Fáilte Uí Dhonnchú which portrays crowds of people walking past a homeless Romanian woman. She is surrounded yet still incredibly alone. The original Irish of De Paor’s poem becomes sculpture - the poem itself displaced, migrating, reassembled.  

On my journeys I follow the same river for hours listening to birdsong. I have been collecting bottles of river water to use in ink drawings which simulate droplets of dew being compelled together. 

Being made of 60% water ourselves, this metaphor for society enchants me: Everyone is connected, part of Ireland, part of the world... but the river splits and divides; it crosses borders, emerging as streams, loughs and puddles; becoming gentrified and compartmentalised, purged and evaporated... it forgets that each droplet is part of the whole.”

Quotes from Irish Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, Jim Daly about the festival and the art exhibitions:

We are honoured to have Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, Jim Daly with us to officially launch our First Fortnight 2020 programme at Dublin Chamber of Commerce HQ this evening, Wednesday November 27th. 

“Each year we endeavour to bring thought-provoking and conversation-inducing art across the country to challenge mental health prejudice and stigma.  This year the focus and themes explored in the festival are loneliness, isolation, and community.  Over the nine years of the festival, we’ve been proud to bring passionate and hardworking volunteers, families, organizations and charities together to create a First Fortnight community to combat feelings of loneliness and isolation.”

Minister Daly is on record from earlier this year affirming what we have all come to realise; “Loneliness affects people across all walks of life, young and old, rural and urban dwellers those living alone or with others.  There are times in everyone’s life when he or she feels lonely or isolated, at a time when people have never been more connected online.”   However, “online communities can be a great social outlet and source of peer support when balanced with face-to-face contact also.  Older people’s groups, mental health groups and community development groups are continually working to promote a positive community response to loneliness.”  Minister Daly continues, “Ireland is justifiably proud of its strong tradition of vibrant, sustainable and inclusive communities.  Calling in to check on neighbours, volunteering in sporting groups, getting involved in Tidy Towns committees, involvement in neighbourhood watch or supporting families in times of crises.” 

Of the festival, Minister Daly remarked; “With First Fortnight Mental Health Arts Festival 2020 shining an additional spotlight on the area of loneliness, isolation and community it serves us all with the perfect duty of care to ourselves and each other, one of inclusiveness.