The Picturing Lockdown Collection was created during April and May 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. During seven days the public were asked to submit photographs that they felt best represented their experiences of lockdown in England, and from these submissions one hundred representing all the different geographic regions were chosen to be archived with Historic England. Alongside these images, ten artists were commissioned to produce their own images over the course of five days, representing their lockdown experience. These were supplemented with images by Historic England’s own photographers. Together, the Picturing Lockdown collection forms a permanent visual record of this unusual time in history.
This photograph, taken at 13.00 on 5th May 2020, is the seventh of seven images depicting the lockdown as experienced by the artist Anand Chhabra, and represents the West Midlands region. The artist has written the following text to explain how this image documents their experience of lockdown: "I have witnessed a lot of amazing creativity in my locality showing support of the NHS locally which has bought people together. I wanted something that points to hope in one of the photos I was taking during 7 days and therefore this sums it up. I spotted this in a neighbours window and the message had been written by a child. The grandfather had placed it in the window and it touched me because through watching the news and witnessing the global devastation this peculiar disease has affected our way of life, it was a welcome breath of fresh air. I didn’t expect a few words written by a child would have such a positive effect on changing my mood….but it did and filled me with belief for the future of the next generation."
This is part of the Volume: HEC01/036/02/05 Picturing Lockdown Collection: Artists' Submissions - Anand Chhabra; within the Sub Series: HEC01/036/02 Picturing Lockdown Collection - Artists' Submissions; within the Series: HEC01/036 Picturing Lockdown Collection; within the Collection: HEC01 Historic England
© Anand Chhabra
Photographer: Chhabra, Anand
People, Health And Welfare
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