Healing in a broken world is a meditative film based on the events of 2020 and featuring the lives of Glasgow artist’s Barrie James O’neill and Penny Anderson.

The video has been filmed by Scottish videographer Stewart Campbell. Using his camera as a third person as he weaves in and around his subject matter Barrie James O’neill and Penny Anderson.

He asks the questions and dissolves the relationship between art and healing and using art as a form of therapy. The work emerges as an interwoven meditation on healing and therapy through art and music.

While it is presented as an uninterrupted flow of images, clips, segments, and music in a way that gives it an artistic quality.

Healing in a broken world was originally created as a solo exhibition idea based on the music of Barrie James O’neill and his career to date, this was postponed due to covid19.

For the interviews we meet in a place of the artist’s choosing. A place where they feel the most comfortable. The footage moves between the domestic home-space of artist Penny Anderson to the studio space in Clydebank of singer Barrie.

The film captures: audio from inside the flat, birds and water in outdoor shots and music at the studio. These real sounds are combined with a voiceover that mixes extracts and lyrics from Barrie James O’neill’s music.

The film then moves in to a 3 minute video montage of chaotic news type bulletin featuring sound and protest images from New York photographer Ruvan Wijesooriya.

The outro features a sound creation from Dan Fontaine and his Sydney orchestra performing one of O’neill’s songs Angel Tears.

Joe Henry producer said: “ I feel like our generation are all on this spiritual healing journey together. We are trying to find calm in this chaotic and frenzied world of constant downloads and fear based news bulletins. My aim with this project is for the viewer to reflect and find their own inner calm. “

Stewart Campbell Videographer said: “ By sharing our stories, by sharing what we’ve learned, and by hearing each other, I believe we begin to make a better world.“

 

Artists: 

Ruvan Wijesooriya:
Ruvan Wijesooriya is a New York Based photographer. During the first months of Covid, he documented his lively “cultural crossroads” neighborhood in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn while going for walks with his toddler. Upon the death of George Floyd, Ruvan broke quarantine to document police brutality and protests in New York City. His professional experience working with artists on film sets (I.e. Doug Aitken’s “Frontier” and live performances (as LCD Soundsystem’s photographer) informs the style in which he is documenting New York City in this time of metamorphosis. His abstract work is meditative and challenges the viewer to go inward. Ruvan has shown at Foam Museum; Ed Ruscha collects his work. He has been widely published internationally.

Barrie James O’neill:
Barrie is a Scottish singer and songwriter from Glasgow, Scotland. Barrie was the founder and frontman of Scottish band Kassidy, he released four EPs and two albums. Hope St. and One Man Army was released in 2011 and 2012, respectively.
O’Neill was one of the writers for Lana Del Rey’s album, Ultraviolence, and contributed by co-writing the song “Brooklyn Baby”. The song was featured as the 4th song on the album, and a snippet was released as a part of a promotional video on iTunes.
O’Neill produced and plays the guitar on Del Rey’s cover of “Some Things Last a Long Time” by Daniel Johnston, which was recorded for the 2015 short film titled Hi, How Are You, Daniel Johnston. O’Neill and Del Rey are both executive producers for the film as well.
Barrie has released two solo albums Cold Coffee and more recently Psychedelic Soup in 2020.

Penny Anderson:
Penny Anderson is an artist based in Glasgow, making installations, 3D work and sampler style embroidery based on overheard stories and testimonies collected from interviews.

Penny works mostly with Text (mostly laser cut, or not so much now, hand or machine sewn embroidery) and ready-mades such as adapted toys and dolls house furniture. Penny is interested in hidden voices of those who are not hard to hear, but are easy to ignore.

Dan Fontaine:
Dan Fontaine is one of Australia’s most sought after composers, musical directors and virtuoso percussionists. A graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium Of Music, Fontaine has amassed millions of Youtube views and international acclaim with his various projects. Working with some of the world’s top musicians, Fontaine’s collaboration with famed choreographer Travis Wall for the US Dancing With The Stars earned the performance an Emmy Nomination.