Why were workshops included as part of the installation?
Sinéad
I think it was important to include the workshops so that there was an educational element to the project but also to allow us include more people. It allowed us to spread the learning around too, not suggesting that we know more than anyone else, but for this particular information we wanted to increase the number of people who could use it in a bespoke way after they left the installation.
Gemma
I think there was also an element where people had a space to make something and while they were doing that, actually creating something, they could allow their minds to wander. They were arts based workshops and as they were making we hoped they might engage with a particular aspect of the installation. As artists ourselves we know how much your mind works while your hands are busy.
Everyone who was on the team went through training on the eight stages of the Homicide Timeline by Jane Monckton-Smith. There is online training you can do and we were accompanied by a mental health professional who sat in on all the workshops. They were there in case people needed help or needed to be signposted in a particular direction.
Where to now?
Gemma
I think myself and Sinead are really excited about taking this installation to other places. This was funded through Belfast City Council’s “Ending Violence against Women and Girls” funding. We got notice about that funding in January and it was meant to be a year-long process. So that meant there were aspects of our project that we didn’t get to do.
We wanted to hold a symposium and bring Jane Monckton Smith over and connect her with youth workers, teachers, social workers, people who work in those kinds of environments.
We also wanted to focus the workshops on specific demographics, young men and boys, young women and girls and older women. We would still really like to do that.
We think this work could travel and we think we have produced a package that is satisfying artistically, and that is the most important thing to us as artists, but we also think it is very effective in terms of communicating the ideas contained within this analysis.
I think both Sinead and I would say that throughout working on this project, we were very cognisant of the woman who lost their lives through this epidemic of violence against women and girls. We were very aware of honouring their memory and the situation with their families as well. We think that every time we tell the stories of these women it helps shed light on that situation.
To see more of the work of Gemma Mae Halligan and Sinéad O’Neill-Nicholl
