SInéad o’neill-Nicholl

This sunny morning's interview with Sinéad O’Neill-Nicholl.

How’s it going?

For the most part, it’s going very well. My children have been off school for a month now and the time has flown by. I still don’t seem to have enough hours in the day to fit in all the things that I want to do.

Once I have made sure they have work to do, answer any questions they have and sort them out with food several times (they pretty much insist on eating, which can be very inconvenient) it’s evening and time to think about dinner.

What is your living situation?

Although I have been mentally preparing for the apocalypse for many years now, I hadn’t quite got around to purchasing an underground bunker. Perhaps that was for the best though, as I am currently holed up in my house in Belfast. I have space at home to do work, even though it takes a bit of setting up before I can start. I also have access to equipment to create most of the art that I make, which largely consists of sound installations and live art performances.

I have quite a big garden with direct access to a main road that doesn’t usually have many people passing by. This has obviously changed a little bit since the coronavirus situation but I can still get outside without coming into contact with too many people and managing to maintain social distancing.

I have four children and they all live at home but since the lockdown, my eldest daughter who is 23 has been staying with her boyfriend in East Belfast so it has been strange not seeing her.

How has the pandemic affected your arts practice?

Before the lockdown, I had just started the final semester of my MFA Fine Art in Ulster. The course is a two year full-time degree that culminates in a degree show at the beginning of June. Almost as soon as the lockdown occurred, our tutors advised us that we would be assessed on the work that we had completed to date and that we would not be required to do any further practical work. This was obviously very disappointing but also understandable and in many ways I felt relieved that this decision was made. This has taken away any pressure that I might have felt to continue to produce work under these really unusual circumstances.

It seems that all of sudden we have lots of time and so in theory I should be able to get loads of work done. For me, though, that has not really been the case. My children have not been at school for a month now and it has taken time to adjust to a new way of working from home. They can work independently to a certain extent but they still need guidance and help with some things, so it’s not really feasible for me to work while they are working. I have started doing research and reading when I can, mostly in the evenings and am still trying to prepare a piece of written work for my MFA. Devoting time to the research element of my practice has been really rewarding and I am trying not to worry about doing anything for my art practice.

Rather than working on my usual art practice which mainly consists of creating sound installations and producing live art performances, I have reverted to doing more practical creative activities that I have neglected for a while. Unbelievably and with the help of Youtube tutorials, I managed to repair my sewing machine and am going to undertake a few projects with that. I have also started to knit again and have been doing a little bit of crochet. Baking and cooking with the kids has also become more of  regular activity (I always seemed to be too busy before). To be honest, I feel lucky to have creative skills and I really believe artists are better equipped than most people to deal with this situation. Working as an artist and curating exhibitions leads to a life of almost continual problem solving and dealing with uncertainty and so I think artists are quite resilient. As well as this, the act of completing tasks that require good hand eye coordination is a very good way of settling yourself and helping to focus the mind.

How are you coping with the temporary closure of the Vault?

Obviously, I miss Vault the building and having access to my studio space. Anyone who has visited our building knows that it is a very special and unique place. My studio partner, Cathy Scullion and I had just relocated to a lovely new shared space in the library and I was really looking forward to spending more time there. But more than that, I miss the people. Vault is the kind of studio space that makes me feel like anything is possible and I think if every artist had access to this kind of support network, every artist could achieve great things. The diversity of artists within the building means that you have access to a talented pool of people who are always willing to help you. Also, because I was coming to the end of my MFA, I was thinking about new projects that I wanted to work on but that has had to be put on hold for now.

What do you appreciate about the lockdown?

I have really enjoyed having the time to slow down and think about the things that I really value in life. I don’t feel at all bored and there are so many things that I still want to make time for.

I also feel quite optimistic that the current situation has the potential to challenge the existing capitalist structures and encourage our society to value public services. We are starting to appreciate the value of particular job roles and how important they are during difficult times. Perhaps people will start to think more about the precarious nature of zero hours contracts and the gig economy and we can look towards building a better future for everyone. I am not sure that this could have happened under normal circumstances.

How do you imagine the future after lockdown? For yourself and the wider art world?

I think it’s unlikely that we will return to society as we knew it before and the longer that lockdown continues the farther we will be from that. As an optimist, I am hopeful that the lockdown has the power to transform our society and to provide an opportunity to rid us of neo-liberal politics and to start thinking about community on a wider scale. The people who will fair best in these circumstances are those that can cope with change and uncertainty and that in itself has the potential to produce a new political landscape, which I think is particularly important for the north of Ireland. Organisations like Another World Belfast, 343 and the Sunflower/American Bar are really excelling right now by continuing to look after others in these uncertain times. They have shown the value of care and community cooperation and I believe those actions will be remembered when this is over. From my perspective, the arts in Belfast are already focused on community and have been working together to affect change for all arts organisations in the city. Lockdown will only serve to strengthen this and increase the influence of arts organisations, which can only be a good thing for artists.

There is a possibility that large outdoor events will be restricted following this situation and that could have a huge impact on arts activities but artists are pretty good at finding creative ways of working and I don’t think this will be any different.

On another note, I think many more people will become ‘germ-phobic’ and this could have a really strange effect on our daily life. Wearing masks and hand sanitiser could become a regular part of our normal behaviour. We may have to restrict activities that we used to take for granted but whatever happens it will become our new normal and we will all adjust.

Where can people find you online?

Website www.sineadonart.com

Instagram -

https://www.instagram.com/sineadonart

https://www.instagram.com/artclasseswithsinead

The art classes account has been a way for me to record some of the art activities that I have done. Following the recent school closures though, I am not able to carry out my regular after-school workshops and so I have been updating this account with activity videos for parents.