Artist Majella O'Neill Collins: "If A ship Is Disposable Then How Disposable Are Humans?"
New Exhibition About the MV Alta Asks About Values, Ageing and How We Treat Each Other
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Our world is a matrix of connectivity. We can track aircraft, cars and even each other from the comfort of a cell phone. There are satellites that can tell how many ice cubes we have in our gin and tonic, cookies recording everything we look at online and doorbell cameras to record when we put the bins out. Amidst all of this surveillance how is it possible to lose a ship? And what meaning can we attach to this lack of attention? These are the questions that West Cork artist Majella O’Neill Collins asks about the mystery of the MV Alta which rode the ocean alone from the Caribbean to the coast of County Cork eventually washing up at Ballycotton.
As part of her current exhibition at the Uillin West Cork Arts Centre Majella took the time to talk about her series of paintings called Allegory of The MV Alta. She took us into her creative process in both practical and emotional terms. From getting her space in order to the recognition that this project had a much more important. personal and profound core than she had imagined
It is incredible how creativity can take us from looking at or thinking about a certain object to the realisation that our original starting point was just a catalyst. As Steve Jobs said ‘Creativity is connecting the unconnected’ I believe that these moments also help us to discover something we already knew and in the case of Allegory of the MV Alta, Majella discovered plenty.
She talked about how the ship had literally been lost at sea. It was last seen off the coast of Bermuda years before arriving on the Irish coast. ‘Where did she go? What did she do for all the time?’ asked Majella making a connection with ageing that resonates with many people. As she said, she is now in her 50s but still feels like the same person she was 30 years ago. For all of us it is easy to look back and wonder where the time went and this is also true of the lost ship - where did the time go between being abandoned and hitting the rocks? Considering MV Alta in these terms brings a very human aspect to the story: We may ask ourselves where did the time go between staying up all night drinking and dancing to putting the cat out at 9pm and curling up with the latest JoJo Moyes or Claire Keegan? Like the journey of the MV Alta it was a gradual journey witnessed by few - the last anyone knew she was sailing the Caribbean and then she wasn’t.
The missing time also brought to mind the abuse that the ship suffered and how the artist relates to the ship as a female entity. MV Alta was shuffled around various locations and owners, her name was changed and she was finally stripped of everything valuable by pirates before being left to her own end. With no power and nothing of value inside she was set adrift to end up crashed onto rocks, and now broken in two. Once the ship was wrecked, it turned out that there was no mechanism (or budget) with which to save or salvage her, there was nobody to rescue her and nobody to witness the journey or the wreck.
And this is really the allegory of the story of MV Alta. It could be a story of trafficked women, of abused people or neglected children. Or it could be a story of anyone else on a journey through life who is eventually stripped of all that is valuable - energy, knowledge and skills - at the hands of a world built on corporate commerce.
A ship seems big to us as adults in the same way that adults seem big to us as children. But the ship is tiny compared to the ocean in the same way that the adults we know as kids are tiny in the world outside our home.
The most striking part of Majella’s thought and creative process was coming to terms with the fact something as huge and skilfully built as a ship is, in the end, disposable. The ship drifted across oceans, she was seen by a UK Royal Navy ship and she was, presumably, missed by her owners but no alarms were raised. Like the person who we observe daily in the street until they are no longer around: we never really see them or pay them any mind until somebody calls the police because there is a nasty smell coming from a neighbour’s flat or the dog has found something in the hedge while out on a morning walk.
It is frightening to consider modern life in such bleak terms but it is still a valid consideration. However, rather than wring our hands we need to take responsibility as a society to build and strengthen social connections because none of us should be disposable.
The paintings in this exhibition are not dark shades and horror show shapes although the edges are left unframed to retain the wildness of the scene and story. The artist has chosen pinks, sky blues and yellows that she sees as expressions of hope - as Majella puts it we may be at the mercy of life but there is always hope on the horizon.
The work has been developed from photographs, plans and interpretations of the sight of the shipwreck which is why there is such clear emotion throughout the exhibition. This is not a figurative representation of a broken ship but an examination of its meaning. Towards the end of our time with Majella I asked her if she sees herself as the MV Alta. She apologised for her tears which answered the question and told us “it is the artist’s responsibility to express what others may not be able to” In many ways we could all be MV Alta.
Allegory of the MV Alta runs at Uillin West Cork Arts Centre in Skibereen, Co. Cork until 2nd March 2024
Find out more about Majella O’Neill Collins here: https://www.monc.ie
If a ship is disposable then how disposable are we as humans
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