Lockdown, 2020
When I started studying I was not aware that we would become the University Cohort named “The Covid Kids”.
First Semester, first lockdown: The work was produced from our “home office”, students got to know each other and our lecturers via Zoom and what causes shoulder shrugging-eye rolling boredom today was tinted with fear of the unknown back then. Rapidly any kind of interaction with other humans became a dangerous potential of spreading decease with potential fatal outcome for loved ones.
In my flat, we followed protocol, watched the daily Press Conference with updates, wiped down our Shoppings before storing them. I flatted with a couple, my partner at the time decided to doubt the “media” and for Covid to be a “lie invented by the government to control the masses”. The relationship which we dragged on over its due time, found a happy end - by me finally ending it.
Not heart broken, yet with days on end lacking human interaction, I spend the lockdown by myself. The flatmates ordered their food and other entertainment via Courier, sometimes a new cardboard box was the only sign of us sharing a space. We reminded each other of our duties, isolation equaled care. My dog and I went for Pacman- like walks to keep distance to other participants in the new National Sport of - walking.
All I was able to submit for my Elective was photos of my work - no one got to see it in person. The boxes a reminder of the fear we felt, the responsibility for one another. And, most importantly, a personal reminder for my art practice, that at the base of everything I make will be the agreement to share physical space and time with an audience.