A group of local artists is calling on people in Belfast to spend Monday doing absolutely nothing.
The idea emerged from Belfast’s 2024 Culture Programme, which has supported local artists in developing new and exciting projects this year.
Jonny McEwen, a Belfast-based artist, said: “A lot of people bring these big, big ideas, and we signed up for a small idea — so we’ve decided to do nothing.”
Jonny is part of Daisy Chain Inc, the creative consultancy company behind ‘Nothing Day’ set to happen on Monday, November 4.
A sign was put up outside City Hall on Wednesday night, advertising the day when “nothing will be happening here”.
Jonny, the creative thinker behind the Nothing programme, said: “It’s quite a playful project but we’re also quite serious about it.
“It’s about nothing as pause, as possibility and as protest. Nothing as pause is about mental health and looking after yourself.
“Nothing as possibility is about encouraging creativity. What happens whenever you get people in a room with no agenda and just take some time to talk and network?
“Lots of good ideas come when you’re doing nothing.
“Nothing as protest — we were thinking about the lack of stuff going on at Stormont but also the people on strike.
“There’s also an anti-capitalist critique about this, you know, businesses are so busy and people’s values about doing and producing.
“There’s value in pausing from that, value for business as well, also value for internal mental health.
“So people find different ways into it.”
A group of local artists are calling on people in Belfast to spend Monday doing absolutely nothing
The main event of Nothing Day will be a three-hour long ‘Nothing Conference’ held in the MAC, on Monday from 2pm to 5pm.
Jonny said: “Any conference I’ve been to, the best bits have been the coffee break. Sometimes the conference is a bit boring, but actually the useful stuff is when you talk to people so the whole conference is literally the coffee break.
“We’re really thankful for the MAC as well. It’s a perfect venue for it and it’s closed on Mondays normally, which is why we’re able to get there.”
The group will mark the build up to Monday with a weekend of performances — about nothing — across Belfast.
Writer, musician and performer Mick McCullagh will be one of the local artists taking part in Nothing Day on Monday 4th November
Jonny said: “We’re working with a couple of different arts. So, some street art, putting up blank pages and we’ve got some performance stuff happening online, where Michael [McCullagh] is doing some videos of people around Belfast doing nothing for an hour, and you can watch them.
“It’s strangely fascinating to watch.”
Asked if filming counts as doing something and what counts as ‘doing nothing’, Jonny said these were the questions they were hoping to raise. He said: “This is where you get into this philosophical look on what is nothing — is nothing even possible?”
Daisy Chain Inc is also planning a ‘Nothing Day’ in Stormont on December 5.
You can find out more about the project at www.nothing-really-matters.com.