Items

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  2020-05-14

  The First Day Out

  This was taken on the first occasion that I left my hometown in almost two months of isolation. My partner and I went to Richmond, a town only ten minutes from my house and very familiar, but the act of leaving was peculiar after so long sequestered. The Richmond Bridge, featured in the image, is the oldest of its kind in Australia, a piece of convict heritage that has stood the test of time. Some of my earliest memories feature the bridge and its surrounds, and returning to that place at the beginning of a post-COVID-19 existence was a peculiar sensation. For me, it will now have dual historical implications, as a relic of the nineteenth century, and of the plague year.
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  2020-05-25

  A Gift From the Past

  The first person I visited when restrictions in Tasmania were eased the first time was a ninety-year old lady, a family friend and distant relation who knows all the stories everyone else has forgotten. I sat in her house for two and a half hours and listened to her talk about our family and all the people they knew, and I learned about a past that is rapidly disappearing as the people who remember it age. After my visit, she gave this glass to my mother. It was my great-grandfather's preferred glass at the local pub, and was gifted to this woman's husband after he died, as he was a great friend to my great-grandfather. She chose to give it to us thinking it would mean more for us than it does her. I had intended to visit Mrs Howlett for months, but life kept getting in the way. The pandemic afforded me the opportunity to explore my own past and the history of many other people in a way that I usually can't in everyday life, and this glass is a physical, tangible example of that experience.
• 
  2020-04-27

  A Postcard From a Friend

  Sent to me by a friend who lives less than half an hour from me, this is an example of how the world has reverted in some ways during the pandemic. Written letters and postcards are largely objects of the past, yet this was an effort at analog connection in the digital world, one that required thought and care to produce.
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  2020-03-30

  A Victorian-Inspired Reticule

  This was the first thing I made during the pandemic. It provided an outlet for my excess energy at the beginning of the initial isolation period, but also allowed some community engagement as it was part of the Instagram movement in the sewing community, #sewcialdistancing. It provided an avenue for me to connect with other creators, and refocus myself at the beginning of isolation.
• 
  26/05/20

  A Victorian-Inspired Reticule

  This item was the first thing I created once entering isolation. A project that I have been putting off for several months, it created an outlet for me to channel the initial nervous energy of the isolation situation. In this I contributed to a larger trend on Instagram in the sewing community, #sewcialdistancing, in which cosplayers, embroiderers, historical costumers, and other sewers began channeling their own excess energy into projects.
• 
  05/07/20

  The first day outside of home

  This photograph was taken of me the first time I left my home since I began self-isolation six weeks prior. It was taken in Richmond, a place only a few minutes from my home, but moving in that space, and seeing larger numbers of people was difficult after being isolated for so long.
• 
  05/20/2020

  A postcard from a friend

  The image depicts a postcard sent to me by a friend who lives only a half an hour away. It represents engagement with outdated technology in order to attempt some semblance of connection in a time and place where that connection is almost impossible.