Collected Item: “Joy on the Pavement”
Give your story a title.
Joy on the Pavement
What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?
Photographs
Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.
During Melbourne’s first lockdown in 2020, movements to bring joy to the few remaining active public spaces were organised over social media and among local communities. One trend was pavement art that encouraged the walker to “laugh”, “pick up some rubbish” and “strike a pose” on their permitted hour of exercise. These minor artworks expressed an optimism in community strength at the early stages of the pandemic; they expressed, too, a resilience in Melbourne’s identity as a city of art and culture. By the second lockdown in August 2020 the chalk had been washed away and there was little to replace it. Creating community from inside our own homes, it turned out, was much harder to sustain than anyone had imagined. Submitted for University of Melbourne HIST30060, Semester 2 2021.
Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?
art,culture,lockdown,community,joy,optimism
Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)
Patrick Gigacz
Give this story a date.
2020-04-12