This exhibition will help you 'feel a little less lonely'

In 2018, the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to appoint a Minister for Loneliness.And while this prompted numerous headlines and think pieces around the world — redoubled when Japan followed suit in 2021 — the move makes perfect sense to Myles Russell-Cook."I get lonely; I think everyone does," says the artistic director and CEO of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) in Naarm/Melbourne.Sophie Prince and Myles Russell-Cook are the curators behind ACCA's exhibition: Are you lonely tonight? I’m so lonesome I could cry. (Supplied: ACCA/Astrid Mulder)"We've got a loneliness epidemic, but there's been a strange resistance on the part of even psychiatrists to define loneliness."He believes this has helped create a culture where admitting loneliness can still carry stigma or shame.But that's where art comes in."I think it was [sociologist and author] Robert Weiss's observation that loneliness has more often been commented on by songwriters than social scientists," he says.This was the thinking behind a new exhibition he curated with Sophie Prince at ACCA, titled Are you lonely tonight? I'm so lonesome I could cry.Named after the song made famous by Elvis Presley, it's the first of the centre's Art as Emotion series."Artists make visible feelings that are not visible, that resist definition," Russell-Cooke says.ACCA commissioned 11 artists — from emerging locals to actor/painter Lucy Liu (yes, that one) — to capture what loneliness means to them.Kayla Mattes described her work Lonely Planet as a timeline of "ghosted conversations, infinite scrolling, curated personas, and the dopamine loops of likes, shares, and notifications". (Supplied: Kayla Mattes/Andrew Curtis)"The way I see it, we can understand loneliness far better through art than probably just about anything else."'Loneliness is a kaleidoscope'There are two tasks that must be completed every morning during the run of this exhibition: feed the fish and change the hot dog.The goldfish is the first thing you see upon entering the space, a bright orange spot swimming around and around in a simple tank against a white wall. His name is Pao Pao, and he belongs to Russell Cooke — he's also the star of a short film by Kelly Yu called Endling, about animals that are the last of their species.The hot dog is the central tenet of Seth Brown's installation Frank, where said sausage endlessly scrolls photos of bread on a phone, looking for his perfect match.The art on display here is wildly varied, featuring artists from all around the world touching on everything from the spectre of lost family photos to the dual community and isolation of night clubs.Russell-Cooke says the collection of these moving, humorous, poignant and glib works shows how expansive and varied loneliness can be."We've had this incredible myriad of different reflections on loneliness, which I think is really appropriate," he says."Because loneliness is a kaleidoscope, like all emotions.""I think [art] just helps you feel more understood," says Kayla Mattes. "Like listening to a song that has lyrics you relate to." (Supplied: ACCA)LA-based artist Kayla Mattes captures some of the paradoxes of loneliness within her woven artwork titled Lonely Planet.When she first started thinking about the theme of the exhibition, the "loneliness of the screen" is what came through for her."You know, we have access to so many people all over the world through this thing, but I feel like we're lonelier now," she says.Her nearly seven-metre tapestry is a woven collection of memes, internet icons and other online detritus that will be deeply familiar to the chronically online. In bright, woolly patterns, it reflects the despair, ennui and razor-sharp humour of the internet age."I think a lot about it as an archival thing. I'm looking at all these images that are fleeting, and turning them into something physical and preserving them," Mattes says."Tapestry doesn't have many restrictions," says Kayla Mattes. "I can weave images, I can use so many different colours, and it's really open." (Supplied: ACCA/Kayla Mattes/Andrew Curtis)But the work started to take on a more personal meaning, too."It evolved into more of a heartbreak piece," she says."Romantic heartbreak, and also heartbreak at the state of the world, specifically being an American living this shitshow we're in right now."The loneliness of this technological age is referenced frequently in the exhibition, perhaps most starkly in a piece by Aotearoa/New Zealand artist Natasha Matila-Smith, titled If I die, please delete my Soundcloud.The audience is asked to climb under the crisp white bed sheets of an ornate single bed, pick up the supplied laptop and headphones, and watch the artist deep in bed rot, scrolling endlessly on her own laptop, while phrases such as "are my heart palpitations from drinking too many fizzy drinks?" appear on the screen.Natasha Matila-Smith is a Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Hine, Samoan and Pākehā artist. (Supplied: ACCA/Natasha Matila-Smith/Andrew Curtis)The contradictions of the internet and its role in our lives is the knotty centre of these works; while the cause and exacerbation of many of the world's current ills, it's also a place where so many of us can connect."Memes rise from specific political or social moments in time, and that becomes this collective look at our feelings and the world," Mattes says."And it kind of allows us to cope a little bit."Even movie stars get lonelyWhile there are innumerable ways to be lonely, the inherent solitude of being a practising artist emerges repeatedly in this exhibition.As both a visual artist and a Hollywood actor, Lucy Liu seems to understand this more than most.Her pieces — a triptych of erotically charged paintings from her 2006-2008 Shunga series — show the struggle between private and public lives.Actor Lucy Liu has been exhibiting her paintings for many years, originally under her Chinese name. (Supplied: Scott Gries/Getty Images)Russell-Cooke says he and Liu had a conversation about how creating deep, introspective work is "only something you can do, and that's inherently lonely"."Artists are often familiar with sequestering themselves in their studio to make work and someone like Lucy is a perfect example," he says.He points out that she exhibited for a long time under her Chinese name, with relative anonymity. At the same time, she was making TV and films being seen all over the world."There's also the loneliness of walking into a room with a thousand people who think they know you, but they actually know about you."Aotearoa/New Zealand-born and Melbourne-based artist and collector Patrick Pound spends a lot of time on his own, combing the real world and the digital one to locate the items he uses in his installations of found objects."To collect is to sort of gather your thoughts through things, it's a way of sorting the world out," says artist Patrick Pound. (ABC: Katherine Smyrk)"Art itself, it's often a very solitary pursuit. If it is a game and a puzzle, it's a game of solitaire," he says."But it brings people together."And his collections are steeped in the stories of others.Seeing the items arranged artfully in an oval on the gallery floor for his work The museum of loneliness, you can't help but wonder about the person who once owned the ceramic clown, or whose face was cut out of a photo (was it an act of revenge, or are they simply a "locket victim"?).Loneliness wasn't one of the 130 specific categories in which Pound already collects, but he was excited by the challenge.He asked himself: "How do you find objects and images that hold an idea that is normally kept private and is not spoken about much?""It's a bit like sadness or unhappiness: you're not really meant to talk about it."Patrick Pound describes his collection, The Museum of Loneliness, as "somewhere between a garage sale and a museum show". (Supplied: ACCA/Patrick Pound/Andrew Curtis)It's obvious why some items are included — such as a still from the film titled The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner — but others are more ambiguous.Pound describes a small black brooch he found that, when very closely inspected, is revealed to be woven from someone's hair."Those objects just have to hold the idea interestingly, in the way a peach might be said to hold the sun — they're saturated in it."For Pound, it's about bringing meaning and magic to things we encounter every day."Objects are always relatable no matter how daft they are, we take something from them; we've all had them or seen them or ignored them before," he says."Everyone's talking about artificial intelligence, but [these objects] have a material intelligence: you learn something off them, or they hold information."What comes after loneliness?For an exhibition about loneliness, you come away from it with the warmth of something shared."Contemporary art is such a powerful way to find community and connection," Russell-Cooke says."It can be a very lonely profession, but when an artist makes a work and they put it into a gallery, they're inviting a conversation with a stranger."And this is just the beginning of the series. The next emotion to be explored inside ACCA's walls will be rage, with Yoko Ono confirmed to take part.Sircuit by Naarm artist Nick Mullaly pays tribute to the iconic gay club in Melbourne, a space the artist says "can alleviate loneliness and shame". (Supplied: ACCA/Nick Mullaly/Andrew Curtis)"She is such a powerful starting point for a show on rage, because she's done protests and resistance, but she's not that far off 100 years old and she's had one message: Peace," Russell-Cooke says."So, how can we actually channel this rage into something hopeful?"Ultimately, that's the point of it all: art being made and shared as a kind of antidote."The vulnerability that is in so many of these works, that's an offering from the artists; they're inviting you to sit with the work and to feel something, and to connect with them."If that doesn't make you feel a little less lonely, then I would be surprised."Are you lonely tonight? I’m so lonesome I could cry is showing at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art until August 30.