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What brings you solace? How can creative communities inspire and engage people in other sectors to support healing through collaboration?

The Big Idea’s 2015 Digital Artist in Residence Clare O’Leary is set to explore this in The Solace Initiative with a group of creative practitioners working alongside hospice workers.

Clare is a documentary filmmaker who also works as an educator in a hospice. She wants to create dialogue and debate around the idea of solace.

“I want to explore what shifts people from the point of pain to peace and contentment or comfort and how the creative process can bring new insights and understandings,” says Clare.

The Solace Initiative starts with a collaboration between Clare and her son Sam O’Leary, a working artist/illustrator living in San Francisco, exchanging creative works around the theme of solace. Clare will build on her own personal experience, which she shares in the video interview below.

The next part of the project is a workshop facilitated by Clare at the Breaker Bay Hall in Wellington. She will bring together working artists, writers, singers and theatre practitioners with local hospice and mental health workers to explore what solace means to them.

“The workshop will explore the effect that inspiration delivered through creativity can have on the personal, professional and social concerns of ourselves, our relationships, our communities and in society,” says Clare.

The Big Idea executive director Elisabeth Vaneveld says The Solace Initiative and the Digital Residency shows the contribution artists can have working with professional teams outside their usual sphere of work.

“There are so many ways that artists vitally influence public and community life especially when new pathways are forged to liberate the power of imagination. When that’s channelled by artists using creative processes that engage people to explore outside the box of their usual habits and routines at work, the results can be life changing and hugely rewarding for the organisations involved,” says Elisabeth.

Clare and Sam will be creating a virtual place of solace, to share and collaborate with others online. Follow The Solace Initiative website and #bringsmesolace for regular updates in the next six months.  A curated snapshot of works and interviews with participants from the workshop will be profiled on The Big Idea and an exhibition will be held in Wellington at the end of the project.

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In this video, Clare shares her personal story. She says for her solace is “a place of comfort, peace, calm and contentment”.  It is the place that you know when you get there, and a place you can always come back to.

About Clare O’Leary

Clare is a documentary filmmaker. Her work has screened in International Film Festivals and is also profiled on NZ on Screen, a site she helped establish alongwith the ScreenTalk blog as its first Content Director. Clare worked for more than ten years on the government’s digital strategy and digital content strategy and was the first Digital Sector Manager for NZTE where she was instrumental in bringing together sector leaders in games, digital technology and creative technology innovation. 

Clare has also worked extensively in the health field, she started off her career as a nurse and moved into youth and community work where she has also used her filmmaking skills. She has made films about artists and writers as well as social and political issues.  More of Clare’s work is available on her blog, The Doco Bug and on NZ On Screen.

About Sam O’Leary

Sam O’Leary works as a freelancer in design, branding and new media for a variety of clients and projects around the world.

Happiest crossing mediums, mixing traditional with digital and collaboration with people from all areas to achieve unique original products – as well as working in more traditional settings searching for timeless and classic styles. Check out his work online at conduction and instagram.

About The Big Idea Digital Residency

The Big Idea's 2015 Digital Artist in Residence is supported by Creative New Zealand.

The residency is a key part of The Big Idea's strategy to support innovation in practice through the creation of new art works that encourage creative collaboration between the artist in residence and communities, delivered through digital platforms.