Browsing by Author "O'Neill, Mary"

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    BartramONeill Actions 2009 - 2014
    (Apple, 2014-03-06) O'Neill, Mary; Bartram, Angela
    Angela Bartram and Mary O’Neill are a collaborative partnership whose work centres on art and ethics and the documentation of performance through situated writing and text that moves beyond formal academic conventions. They offer an alternative creative strategy to the binaries of theory and practice, academic and artist, event and text. The site of their practice is not just the physical location, but includes the artist's body, the anticipated audience, the environment, the document, and the atmosphere. Rather than prioritising one form over another, each manifestation is seen as having generative potential for further creative responses, creating an ongoing work.
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    Ephemeral Art: Telling Stories to the Dead
    (Open Humanities Press, 2011) O'Neill, Mary
    The endurance of the form of storytelling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that telling stories is not merely an entertainment, an optional extra which we can chose to engage with or not, but a fundamental aspect of being. We tell stories to construct and maintain our world. When our sense of reality is damaged through traumatic experiences we attempt to repair our relationship with the world through the repeated telling of our stories. These stories are not just a means of telling but also an attempt to understand. Stories are performed and performative; they do not leave us unchanged but can in fact motivate us to act. They are not merely about things that have happened, but are about significant events that change us. Through our stories we demonstrate that we have not only had experiences but that those experiences have become part of one’s knowledge. In this essay O’ Neill will explore the potential of objects to tell a story, the object that is both the subject of the story and the form of telling. Two ephemeral art works will be considered: Domain of Formlessness (2006) by British artist Alec Shepley and Time and Mrs Tiber (1977) by Canadian artist Liz Magor. Both works embody the process of decay and tell a story of existence overshadowed by the knowledge of certain death and the telling of the story as a means of confronting that knowledge. The ephemeral art object tells a story in circumstances when there are no words, when we have nothing left to say.
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    Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Derelict. The Things We Have Lost.
    (2024-03-22) O'Neill, Mary
    I was born on a watery Island; the damp has never left me. I used to believe my ancestors were seals and that is why when I felt in danger I lay in the bath, why I longed to float and why I lived in fear of drowning. I have lost my ability to breath underwater, birth deprived me of amniotic life, of the comfort of the sea. In writing and in art I attempt to return, and for a moment I capture it, but then it is gone. Over the course of nearly forty years, I have made work that I broadly categorise as ‘Lost at Sea’. These works are divided into groups; Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Derelict. The works describe things that have been lost, but can be found again, markers that we have left so that we can return to them at another time, things that can never be reclaimed. The paper is presented as a performance lecture, including images, pieces of text and film clips. The works have been exhibited internationally and the texts are from published writing, both creating writing and academic texts. This presentation is a long view of what might initially seem like disparate works but are all link by the sea. I would swim over the deepest ocean The deepest ocean, my love to find But the sea is wide and I cannot swim over And neither have I wings to fly If I could find me a handsome boatman To ferry me over my love and I. Traditional Ballad
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    Foreignhood: The state of Being Foreign
    (2019) O'Neill, Mary
    THE CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL CLIMATE REINFORCES THE FEAR OF THE OTHER. THIS IS A NOTICEABLE BUT NOT NEW POST 9/11 PHENOMENON. THE DISTRUST OF THE OTHER HAS ALWAYS EXISTED – DISTRUST OF PEOPLE FROM THE NEXT VILLAGE, PEOPLE FROM OTHER COUNTRIES, PEOPLE WITH A DIFFERENT WORLD VIEW OR PEOPLE WHO LOOK DIFFERENT. The twenty first century brought ‘home’ the reality of violence to a generation in the west that had grown accustomed to thinking that war only happened in some other part of the world, with attacks on London, Paris, Nice, Stockholm, New York and elsewhere. In the interests of increased security it has been advantageous for the political elite to exploit this innate fear of the other and to compress in it into a fear of foreigners by reinforcing ideas of nationalism and cultural identity. Catarina Kinvall and Jitka Lindén argue: ‘Categories of us and them, home and away, east and west are constantly being used to defend invisible boundaries and thus create psychological distance between people, nations and continents.’ (Kinnvall, C. and J, Lindén. Dialogical Selves between Security and Insecurity: Migration, Multiculturalism, and the Challenge of the Global. Theory & Psychology Vol. 54 20 (5): 595-619, 2010) On a micro level the fear of the other has always been overcome in a time of tragedy or crisis however rather than appealing to this basic understanding of commonality the current climate exploits the fear of otherness. ‘Foreignhood’ – the original recording draws on 32 voices from as many countries, many speaking in a language which is not their mother tongue - addresses the universality of the experience of otherness. The recognition affords the possibility of commonality and defuses fear and distrust. Please add your voice to the growing community of foreigners. The artists wish to thank the many foreigners whose voices, time, and generosity made this work possible.
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    Foreignhood: the state of being foreign
    (2019) O'Neill, Mary
    Foreignhood is a multimedia project, created by Johanna Hällsten and Mary Rose O’Neill that encourages people to participate in an artwork that celebrates the diversity of contemporary British culture and the contribution foreigners have made to their adopted home, as an antidote to the increasingly divisive climate exacerbated by the Brexit referendum, and the subsequent rhetoric of nationalism. The work encompasses two elements – ‘Foreign’ badges and a collaborative sound piece – Foreignhood. To find out more, or to participate, visit the project website and get in touch via the contact form
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    Health Care, Free at the Point of Delivery
    (The Sociological Review, 2024-04-05) O'Neill, Mary
    This short story describes an ambiguous situation where the reader is unsure of the narrator’s state of mind. Both reader and narrator are in the same situation. Neither are confident that the scene, where a newborn with teeth is revealed to the narrator, actually occurred. The narrator is unreliable and she does not trust herself. She describes “walking close to walls”, an indicator of her loss of confidence in herself and the world – she is “unsteady”. Researchers have found that women in the UK have more severe symptoms and poorer quality of life compared to postmenopausal women in Spain and France. They argue that the perception of menopause and subsequently the view of menopausal women in a particular society has a significant impact on their symptoms and experiences. The perception of menopause has also a significant impact on the medical care a woman receives.
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    Here, I AM
    (Intellect, 2008-12-01) O'Neill, Mary
    In this paper I will discuss three communicative acts: an ephemeral artwork InMemory; a narrative The art of being lost; and a paper Ephemeral Art: Mourning and Loss. These were presented, respectively, at the Salina Art Centre, Kansas; Emotional Geography Conference, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario; and (Im)permanence: Cultures In/Out of Time at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. These pieces deal with the same subject, but are presented in different modes reflecting the requirements of different sites a gallery, a conference, and a book. All three aspired to creativity as well as rigour, to articulate intuitive as well as empirical knowledge. I will discuss these works in terms of site specificity and integrated practice, rather than opposite poles of a creative spectrum, which places text at one end and image at the other. I will demonstrate how each mode has informed the other and how each has benefited from the particular requirement imposed by the site. The site here is not just the physical location but includes the anticipated audience, the environment, and the atmosphere. The works are interactive and are akin to the concept in communication analysis of recipient design. I hope this case study may be useful in providing an alternative to viewing writing in art and design as inherently problematic. Instead, I offer an analysis of a multifaceted practice in which the I is always present, implicitly or explicitly.
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    Notes on a confinement
    (2021-04-19) O'Neill, Mary
    confinement, n. 1. The action of confining, or (more usually) the fact or condition of being confined, shut up, or kept in one place; imprisonment. 2. a. Restriction, limitation (to certain conditions). 1678—1846 1678—1846 †3. An obligation, a personal tie. Obsolete. 4. spec. The being in child-bed; child-birth, delivery, accouchement. (The ordinary term for this in colloquial use: see confine v. 6. The Middle English equivalent was Our Lady's bands, bonds, or bends: see band n.1 1c, bend n.11d, bond n.1 1c.) 1774—1870 Mary O'Neill will be confined in The Gallery DMU Leicester from 19th - 25th April. This project asked artists, writers, and performers from different continents to join in a discussion of how their thinking has altered over the last year as a result of their confinement. Initially the invited participants were asked to go for a walk and record their thoughts.
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    This is All I Have
    (Bermondsey Project Space, 2022-05) O'Neill, Mary
    Mary O’Neill presents us with a world where there is no order, no coherence. Where things happen and you have no control. Images are paired with texts that ultimately confuse and question more straightforward narratives.
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    Unnamed Heroine
    (MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE, 2020) O'Neill, Mary
    In 2018 the Thompson Reuters Foundation published a survey of the ten most dangerous countries for a woman to be born in and to live in. This survey was based on six key areas: Healthcare, Discrimination, Cultural Traditions, Sexual Violence, Non- Sexual Violence, and Human Trafficking. According to this survey the countries most hazardous to women were: 1. India 2. Afghanistan 3. Syria 4. Somalia 5. Saudi Arabia 6. Pakistan 7. Democratic Republic of Congo 8. Yemen 9. Nigeria 10.U.S.A. We would like to honour the woman in these countries where in some cases just being alive is an achievement. For these women heroic acts are not a choice but the cost of being alive. For many, each day is a battle against discrimination and oppression. The UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE Campaign vowed to end violence against women by 2030. The work is inspired by all these girls and women, together with Finnish writer and social activist Minna Canth (1844- 1897) who as a single mother of seven, challenged and helped change women’s rights and education in Finland. ‘Gender equality in education benefits every child. Worldwide, 132 million girls are out of school’. https://www.unicef.org/education/girls-education