We recently connected with Zoe McCarthy and have shared our conversation below.
Zoe, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
The most meaningful project I’ve worked on has been a collaborative installation called “Operation” with artist and friend Carole Jolly.
“Operation” is a space where visitors can explore emotional and sensory concepts through playful interaction with art. Inspired by a series of figurative portraits created by Carole depicting states of loss, love, and joy, these characters are brought to life through sculpture, animation, and audience participation. The figures in Carole’s paintings depict bodily organs in various states of emotional activation, which we have converted into mixed media 3d sculptures that guests are invited to play with, reminiscent of the childhood game “Operation”. Upon exploring and reconfiguring the space, guests will find that the placement of organs will trigger different projected animated stories to play on the wall, featuring the original figures as central characters. As these characters work through their emotions, the hope is for the audience to consider how our emotional and physiological landscapes impact one another and reflect the ways we choose to relate, connect, and cope.
As an experimental, multimedia, interactive art space, created on a low budget by two independent artists, “Operation” has been a highly iterative and experimental process. However, this endeavor has been particularly meaningful in exploring the idea of a responsive environment, and what this truly means. How can we maximize connection, participation, and feelings of ownership among viewers, while still maintaining the integrity and distinction of personal narrative? What does a multimedia playground for adults look and feel like? Is there a way to touch on deep themes with playfulness and whimsy? Exploring these themes and questions, especially with an experienced and powerful artist like Carole (who brings her background as a mental health professional to the project) has allowed us to deepen our relationships to ourselves, one another, and our creative practices.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My creative practice has evolved over the last ten years in pursuit of immediate, connective, multi-sensory environments and experiences. I received my BFA in Illustration at the University of the Arts and have expanded my practice through a robust independent study of game design and procedural animation. My freelance design practice encompasses interactive media of all kinds including video games, museum exhibits, and virtual production. Clients and collaborators include Discovery Place Nature Center, Port Discovery Children’s Museum, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, PNC Bank, Flagler College, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Librarium Inc, AUTOMAT Collective, and the Art Hive Gallery in Prescott.
My approach as a designer, artist and place-maker are informed by the same core principles; sustainability, connection, education, and play. Thus, I’m committed to the reimagining of exhibits and installations as “responsive environments”, where interactivity and multidisciplinary collaboration are emphasized. I bring to the table extensive expertise in the field of real-time animation systems, with the capacity to create rich, stylized visual language that facilitates deeper levels of audience engagement. My iterative process and divergent approach to problem solving are a unique and complex fingerprint that I leave on every project.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Artists in our society are expected to treat themselves as machines in order to make a living, which isn’t always conducive to making truly resonant creative work. The creative process is often at it’s best when it has the time and space to be iterative, which the commercial art market rarely allows for. Additionally, when art is simultaneously undervalued yet always packaged for consumption, it’s oftentimes not available to low resource communities. To create thriving creative eco-systems, there have to be resources and supports in place for creative projects with no monetary business model – mutual aid endeavors that are designed for accessibility. In order for these projects to be executed, funding would need to come from the sectors of society where wealth is predominantly hoarded- by corporations, and the government. To incentivize companies to contribute to the arts and culture sector without excessive conditions, the government could and should provide tax breaks or other financial benefits for corporations that pay it forward in this manner.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
One of the hardest things to convey about the creative journey is the alchemization of challenge into self actualization. Every field has its difficulties, but there is something unique about the mental fortitude and tenacity required to persist in the face of creative rejection, and the labor required to remain internally connected. There are constant invitations in our world to disconnect and dissociate, from others, the world around us, and ourselves- but creativity is at it’s best when maintained by self reflection, vulnerability, and openness. Being able to tend the internal landscape while still showing up in the professional world is a delicate balance to strike. It is a task as a creative to stay open and hopeful when resources and opportunities are limited. It’s challenging, yet rewarding, to build your own systems when the dominant ones don’t serve you, and go off road into the unknown.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.zmccarthy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sligocreatures
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoe-mccarthy95/
