How Art Heals-WEB

15 7. Stiofan O’Ceallaigh WWW.STIOFANOCEALLAIGH.CO.UK WEST YORKSHIRE, UK “ Decisions/Decisions is a reactionary photograph created at the time of the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Florida, where forty-nine members of the LGBTQ community were murdered and fifty-three were injured. My feel- ings—unacknowledged at the time—I now know included a lot of anger and sadness. “While we have made strides with equality, I couldn’t help but experience a feeling of f lux that this moment gave me. For example, in one part of the world we are legal, ‘safe,’ and accepted, whereas in another we are mur- dered, tortured, and ostracized. I attempt to indicate this with the black arrows: ‘Which direction is safe? This is making me dizzy.’ This piece relates heavily to my own experiences as a child and an adult—of belong- ing, but not belonging.” I felt a lot of relief after creating this piece. It felt like a purge. Even though the piece took no time at all to complete, today I can still look at it as a contemporary understanding of what it means to be gay or LGBTQ in 2019.