The Artiscape Magazine features an interview with Nicola Anthony about the solo exhibition ‘A Desire for Closeness’, January 2020, as part of First Fortnight Festival.

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Published on the 6th of December 2019. Article by Fiona Doyle.

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Artist Nicola Anthony on themes of loneliness, isolation, and community in her latest work

By Fiona Doyle -December 6, 2019

British Artist Nicola Anthony has spent much of the year designing and installing a new public sculpture in Aspen, Colorado.

She tells us “It is a text artwork featuring quotes from writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, alongside blessings in Hebrew, about extending love and kindness to all fellow human souls.”

The artist has featured several times on The Artiscape for the work she has done in Singapore and Myanmar. We spoke to her about her latest work which has taken her to Ireland as well as the USA.

(image) Nicola Anthony at Sovereign Art Prize

Much of Anthony’s research this year she tells us, has centred around communities and cultures who have “traditionally migrated, and the need to have compassion towards those from different places and cultures.” 

“My research has involved talking to those of various ethnicities who have recently migrated to Ireland or are second generation migrants to Ireland, alongside those of Irish heritage who have migrated and settled around the world.”

Anthony’s latest exhibition is part of (and funded by) first fortnight festival, which is bringing together arts events around the subject of mental health.

“When I first heard about the festival I was so inspired,” says Anthony. “Each year First Fortnight brings thought-provoking and conversation-inducing art across Ireland to challenge mental health prejudice and stigma.”

She says “This year the #FFFest20 focus is loneliness, isolation, and community – incredibly important themes which much of my past work has obliquely explored when I focus on disenfranchised people or outlying communities.”

“I am very happy to be curated into the festival lineup, alongside a roster of award winning and incredibly talented artists, playwrights, and even the Irish National Opera!” says Anthony.

(image) Clockwork Moon (Reclamation) Detail (c) Nicola Anthony

The artist’s exhibition that will be displayed at the festival is called A Desire For Closeness. “It will feature sculptures and drawings about the experience of loneliness and the innate human need for togetherness,” says Anthony. “What I found through talking with individuals in Wexford who feel isolated, displaced, or lonely is that everyone experiences it so differently and for diverse, multi-layered reasons.”

“On my journeys to Enniscorthy, I was really awed by the murmurations of starling birds swarming overhead. In their flock, they follow a pattern of behaviour in which many small interactions result in the appearance of a harmonious dance,” says Anthony.

“From the outside this looks like a highly co-ordinated action. From the inside it’s just small-scale behaviours that follow instincts of swarming, safety, and warmth. I saw a real parallel between this and our human ‘flocks’, gravitating towards one another, appearing to each have our place in the community, seeming daunting to those trapped outside” she says.

(image) Clockwork Moon (Reclamation) Detail (c) Nicola Anthony

What will an audience take away from her work at the festival?

“Through art I always try to give insight into how other people experience life, but also find within that a universal human experience,” she says. “Though the human need to connect is innate, many of us frequently feel alone. We can encounter loneliness when we feel misunderstood, when we loose our loved ones or connections to wider society, when in a new place, even in a room full of friends”.

Anthony hopes her work will resonate with the audience, by normalising and removing “the stigma of loneliness”. She wishes for it to spark “discussions and challenges perceptions – and also inspires people to be kind, reach out, have compassion for others.”

“The exhibition will be held at The Presentation Arts Centre, and I am really grateful to them and the Wexford Arts Centre for allowing me to run workshops and discussions which help me better understand folks who may be feeling isolated locally, as well as inviting the community to write letters to me,” says Anthony.

Nicola Anthony will be running  workshops and an artist’s talk on 11th Jan, The artist welcomes our readers to come along!