Zoe Gouli (ZG): Out of the Blue is your first solo exhibition; how do you feel it has gone? What are your thoughts on your first solo exhibition being one that travels between multiple venues, having shown this work at originalprojects, Attenborough Arts Centre and other venues?

Joanna Holland (JH): It has been an amazing experience for me for all sorts of reasons. Mainly, I’ve been positively overwhelmed by the responses that I've had to my work. In both galleries there was an opportunity for people to leave responses to the exhibition and to share their own experiences of chronic illness. We received over 280 responses, which feels extraordinary. A big reason for doing this exhibition was to try and carve out a space for people to talk about invisible disability and chronic illness, and I really feel that that was achieved, so that fills me with a lot of joy. As does working with a whole heap of wonderful people at each venue and my collaboration with artists and others. The whole experience has been brilliant.

ZG: What has been the reception of your work in the cultural and social landscape of Great Yarmouth? Did you feel it impacted people in a different way there compared to other places?

JH: There's a physicality that's really different about the spaces I’ve shown this work in. I was delighted to be working in the physical space of Great Yarmouth; I feel very connected to Yarmouth & to the sea. I went to university in Norwich, and we always used to escape to Yarmouth and the seaside, which was wonderful to return to again.

All of this work originated from a conversation with Rachel Graves, the Visual Arts Officer at Attenborough Arts Centre, about the two photographs of my privacy curtains in my hospital ward, which I had flipped around to look like seascapes. So I was really happy to have that connection to Yarmouth – as of course Leicestershire is completely different geographically. They're also entirely different venues with completely different kinds of audiences. Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester is part of the University and it has a big focus on inclusivity and accessibility. 20 - 25 % of their visitors identify as disabled, which for a gallery is really unusual, though of course it shouldn't be, given that that exactly mimics the percentage of disabled people in the UK’s  population. I want my work to be accessible to everybody. PrimeYarc being inside a shopping centre was a completely different context. Accessibility is explored in such a unique way there.  That led to the conversations I had to be fairly informal, both with fellow artists and members of the public, that often centred around their own lived experiences of chronic health. I left Yarmouth with all those conversations in mind. PrimeYarc was a joy for that reason; it’s so accessible, both physically and in its essence as an unpretentious cultural hub. In my mind, that’s absolutely where art should be.

ZG: The way this exhibition worked in the physical space of PrimeYarc is really interesting; there is a sense of structure and organisation with different sections achieving different things, and an underlying narrative and stream of consciousness that connects them. How did you approach structuring your work in the space? Did you have an idea going into the installation or did the image emerge with time?

JH: When I first visited in the early stages of putting together the show to discuss it with Jules and Kaavous, I was honestly quite intimidated by the space of PrimeYarc as it’s so vast. Kaavous suggested the idea of using hospital ward privacy curtains as a way to structure how people engage with the exhibition. It made perfect sense; those curtains feature in my work in various ways, and once we installed them it all fell into place. The whiteness of the space, the ceiling and floor tiles are similar, if not identical, to that of most hospital wards. We installed the curtains to mimic that three-by-two metre space around your bed – which you’re given in a hospital ward, which is limiting and very isolating.  In Leicester, the works were set up differently - it was more of a group viewing experience, but in PrimeYarc, visitors sat on their own to engage with the works with headphones which meant a more intimate, but also isolating experience. Offering this isolating experience to audiences felt important, in the context of the work and narratives around lived experiences of chronic illness. I was shocked by how different the same body of work can look in different contexts. I think the set-up we created in PrimeYarc amplified the medical-based works in particular.

One area of the exhibition was dedicated to the work of artists I collaborated with; I invited artists with a connection to Great Yarmouth to respond to the artworks in Out of the Blue. Following on from my medical-based artworks were works by Dolly Sen and Caroline Cardis who created pieces which explored medications and their side effects. Then, Genevieve Rud’s work was placed nearby; her perspective came from a focus on the natural world and lunar cycles. The narrative connects in to themes of natural solace and a longing for the natural world, which are present in my next series of works. I didn’t give any direction to the invited artists, but their responses were wonderful and tied everything together so naturally.

ZG: Out of the Blue makes a connection between physical illness and loss of biodiversity. How did you come to this connection? Can you expand on it?

JH: I feel like that connection came from everywhere. My whole life I’ve loved nature; I have distinct memories of trying to spend as much time as possible outside when I was a child. That sense of immersion plays a role in it too. I’ve chosen to work in nature where I can and have previously worked with the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, which is a global project that focuses on preserving biodiversity, and with Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination, a charity which co-creates with artists & communities in wild & civic spaces. The work of both of these organisations informs my current practice but I’ve always wanted to be a part of this conversation. I’m constantly aware of what’s happening to our world, our collective lack of care for our planet and our biodiversity, and of course the climate crisis.

Extremely poor health and several hospitalisations meant that I had to reassess how I work during the pandemic. I've always had a participatory practice, and a socially engaged practice but catching Covid 19, combined with my pre-existing conditions, made my participatory practice impossible. I had to completely change how I worked and this was really quite difficult. As a result I moved towards a sort of ‘remote practice’ – using media where I didn’t always need to be physically present, such as sound, photography & artist video. The product of that was the ‘not-so-present’, film and soundscapes that audiences experienced in Out of the Blue. During this period of change, the concept of precarity stuck with me; the narratives of care, and the marginalisation of Disabled people, and how this echoes the way we treat our biodiversity – especially endangered species in the wild. I couldn't help drawing parallels between those kinds of existences.  I also wanted to draw out this idea of the marginalised and the invisible; Disabled people and those living with chronic illness are everywhere, we’re a huge part of the population, and yet we remain invisible. 

On the other hand there’s a solid, practical link between these themes. I crave natural environments when I’m ill, which I physically can’t reach. Then once I’m better I can be in nature again, and I’m struck by how lucky I am to be well enough to access it. I think we should all be viewing the natural world in that way, regarding it as precious.

The triptych first walks shows three different square images of the natural world and explores exactly that feeling of re-emerging into nature. The photographs were printed onto brushed aluminium - a rough surface, so when you move around them they sparkle a little.  As does their sister work rapture – an iridescent blue forest. And that is how I view those special moments of connection with nature; they shimmer in my mind. I’m keen to keep exploring the duality of joyful reunion with the natural world and longing for its solace and comfort when surrounded by the synthetic.