Items
Instructional Method is exactly
University of Tasmania
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2020
HUM 402 assignment prompt, University of Tasmania
Assignment prompt given to University of Tasmania students in HUM 402 by instructor Nicole Tarulevicz -
2020-05
Zoom Fatigue
With the pandemic came online learning and being forced into a class room situation where everything was mediated through our screens. I found this learning style to be mentally draining and had felt that I was alone in my experience when all I saw online was people celebrating the wonders of connecting through zoom. Seeing this infographic which acknowledges zoom exhaustion and breaks down why it happens and ways to overcome it was really nice. It shows that my experience is felt by many and while technology has allowed many of us to stay connected it isn't with negatives. HUM402 -
2020-03-21
Socially Distanced Birthday
My birthday fell just before the height of the pandemic. While staying at home was not yet mandatory, social distancing was starting to be brought in. Luckily, some of my amazing friends dropped off this birthday present and left it outside my door. -
2020-05-09
Window
I am including this selection of two photos of my bedroom window, as this has been the dominant view and my sole saving grace throughout lockdown. The photo on the left was taken in my first week of lockdown on the twenty third of March, which was the first week that I began to stay at home as I am asthmatic and was very concerned about my own health making me more vulnerable. The second photo was taken on the first of June, and marks ten weeks since my own ‘lockdown’ began, I have somewhat lost track of the various stages of lightening of restrictions as I was still mostly avoiding going out up until the point when the second photo was taken. In many ways my asthma and anxiety made this experience pretty traumatising, I stopped walking my dog because I people kept patting her and I had too much anxiety about the conflict of constantly asking people not too, and I was worried about the contact risk to myself from people touching my dog. After the rate of community transmission stabilised, I felt safer going out to places, but then I found the secondary anxiety of people behaving in rude and hostile ways towards me in public due to my obvious coughing or wheezing from asthma after I had an obvious asthma attack in Officeworks. My isolation has thus been pretty intense and long lasting compared to some others and combined with anxiety has induced an intense sensation of feeling trapped in my bedroom. The access to sunlight and fresh air through this window, as well as my beautiful view has been a literal visual lifeline, I found myself taking lots of photos of the window and my view. In many ways I feel like this has made me far more attentive than I have ever had the opportunity to be to the changes between night and day, and the slow seasonal change into winter. -
2020-04-17
Second Adolescence
This photo is of my little brother, who is sixteen this year, as we were spending time together on the balcony of our house. This was out of sheer desperation in terms of getting out of the house, even though it is freezing outside at this time of year in the afternoons. For two months during lockdown my brother and I spent more time together than we probably have in the last three years combined, given that I am ten years older than him and have lived out of home up until last year our relationship was always a bit like ships passing in the night. In addition to that our relationship has always been vaguely parental due to the age difference (and possibly my own gendered conditioning to adopt a caregiver role), yet in this period I have had such a strange feeling of emotionally revisiting my adolescence due to the amount of time I am spending with my brother and cousin who is eighteen, which has been such a strange and disorienting experience. I feel like this has been such a pointed sensation for me as someone who doesn’t drive, and with public transport it is just bearable as I have some access to independent travel. But when I could no longer go anywhere at all without my mother driving me, I felt like my identity as a capable adult essentially crumbled overnight. There are elements to this that are positive, I feel like my brother understands me much better now and my relationship with my cousin borders more on the side of best friends than cousins in a way that would probably not have happened if I hadn’t been forced to put aside the cloak of adulthood which made me essentially relate to my cousin from a caregiver perspective. -
2020-04-22
Jan Fran- Text From Facebook Post
I have included Jan Fran’s name in this only because the facebook post was public and she is an established political commentator, but I was somewhat anxious about publishing her words in this way. When I first saw this facebook post it honestly probably took me about a week to get over my sheer rage at the amount of money Jeff Bezos has personally made profiting from the pandemic, which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for that fact that his personal wealth is so staggeringly incomprehensible already. I read the other day that he has pledged a billion dollars to charities in the wake of coronavirus, which is just under a third of his personal wealth. How is it that one man can accept brownie points for donating a billion dollars in a context when he can justify keeping nearly two billion dollars in personal wealth while income inequality is a driving force in the deaths of over a hundred thousand people in his own country alone. How can anyone can claim to have ‘earned’ or ‘deserve’ such a staggering amount of money in a world rocked by a global pandemic is just so incomprehensible. Jan’s point about this false trade-off between the health of the economy and safety, which is made on so many levels above and beyond public health in a pandemic (because funding free education is bad for the economy rather than billionaires) is so striking, and I can only hope there are enough people who are more disgusted with the two billion dollars Jeff Bezos decided to keep than there are wanting to pat him on the back for donating the one billion. -
2020-04-06
Hopper Life Filter
I have included this photo as it reminded me so strongly, on the night I took that photo, of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (1942). For some reason I have always found the colour palette and story of that particular painting to be really soothing and calming, and it has always been one of my favourite painting for that reason even though by genre and artist it falls well outside my usual area of interest. I remember reading something years ago which described the scenes depicted in Hopper’s artworks in this period as depicting liminal social spaces, characterised by public spaces designed for crowds (cafes, hotels lobbies, restaurants etc.) which are nearly empty and in between phases of activity, and this whole year has felt like one giant Hopper painting that I can’t escape from. I looked at a bunch of his paintings again whilst deciding what to say about this moment, and the painting Automat (1927) is one I have always identified with in a really positive way being both rather introverted and a ritual tea drinker. When I was looking at his paintings again and saw it however, I felt such a strange rush of both sadness and anxiety and I can’t help but feel like my enjoyment of Hopper’s paintings in this period has been ruined forever, though hopefully my feelings about the paintings will swing in the opposite direction again as I age and change myself, as great art is wont to do. -
2020-04-17T19:30
Isolation and Illumination
I included this video because in my own time practicing social distancing and social isolation, I noticed that my days and nights became dominated by two distinctive scenes, which is a rather harsh contrast to the variety of settings available to me normally. The first being the windows to freedom I had driving in the car to and from the grocery store, or occasionally to go through the drive through. The second is my home, or more specifically the bedroom from within which I have to sleep, study, eat and entertain myself. Whilst I had access to several peripheral liminal zones between these two, such as the balcony outside my bedroom and my local walking track when walking my dog. The neon lights and empty spaces of the outside world through the car window, or through the layer of social distancing in the grocery store exemplify so much of the feeling I have experienced in isolation. I can’t quite pin down this feeling with a pithy phrase yet, but I found that the physical confinement to settings which became routine was so much more traumatising than the lack of social connection which was for me almost an over surplus rather than a lack as I am constantly surrounded by family with both my mother, brother and occasionally cousin being confined to a small cottage house. I feel like the whole world became this strange liminal space in which daily communal expectations were suspended without being overturned with new expectations, I never really got the sense of ‘the new normal’ that others have mentioned. -
0007-04-04
Initial closure of all Hospitals and Aged Care Facilities
The decision to close hospitals to visitors was a step taken to ensure the safety and health of staff, immunodeficient and vulnerable members of our community. Both closures impacted my ability to visit family members and while this was difficult, I understood the importance of introducing these measures given the circumstances of the pandemic. And additionally, appreciated that in response to these changes, the facilities introduced various means of staying connected with loved ones. -
2020-05-23
#Keepourmobsafe
HUM402 The Australian Government has launched a campaign to #keepourmobsafe. This image is of a screenshot of an ad for the campaign, which the government is using to educate Indigenous Australians regarding the risk of COVID-19. The ads appear to be targeting Indigenous Australians living in remote communities, giving them tips on how to stop the spread of COVID-19 and utilising indigenous artwork and slang to appear 'relatable'. -
2020-04-02
Cancer doesn't press pause during a pandemic
This article is a timely reminder that while there is a pandemic that has seemingly put our lives on hold, for others, that is not the case. Cancer isn't put on hold during a pandemic. People will continue to be diagnosed with cancer, they will continue to get treatments despite the risks of COVID-19 and sadly, people will pass away from cancer. This article is a really moving piece that highlights the experience of COVID-19 from the perspective of someone living with terminal cancer and the likelihood that they may not see the other side of isolation. -
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. -
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. -
2020-03-30
Van Gogh Painting Stolen
A Van Gogh painting was stolen from a museum in the Netherlands due to closure because of COVID-19. -
2020-05-27
Make-do Standing Desk
Studying from home meant that I had to find a lot of materials around my house to create my workspace, whereas I usually study in the university library or in cafes. This image shows my precarious standing desk I created one day when I had been sitting down too long! -
2020-05-27
Cat Playing in a Box
My girlfriend was housesitting for a man who was unfortunately on a cruiseship when coronavirus hit, and he had to be quarantined on Rottnest island. This box was ironically holding toilet paper, but we repurposed it to be a cat café and wrote that he was only serving us takeaway due to COVID-19 restrictions. -
2020-05-27
Charades Virtual Edition
Over the course of the pandemic student resident committees and the student living staff at the UTAS Sandy Bay Student Accommodation have come up with many online activities to keep residents connected with each other. This example is an invitation from the John Fisher College resident committee. -
2020-03-20
Sports Cancelled Due to Covid-19 Risk
Sailing, as well as all other sports, have been cancelled or postponed due to the Covid-19 crisis. This sailing club, like many others is therefore shut for the foreseeable future. I chose this image because through all the years that I have been sailing (17 years) nothing like this has ever occurred before. -
2020-05-27
Flatmates
I have spent the pandemic living with my 5 flatmates in our student accommodation. Some of us had lived at student accommodation before and were already acquainted with each other, whereas others were strangers at the beginning of the year. Over the last few months we have learned to live with each other amidst the uncertainty posed by the virus, organising cleaning rosters, discussing food, stressing over university assignments and rediscovering the beauty of The Lord of the Rings films. -
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. -
2020-04-30
Productivity during COVID - 19
This image, found on Instragam, encapsulates the immediate effects of COVID - 19 upon the way individuals live their lives. By exploring the juxtaposition between the before, during and after states of COVID - 19 the post articulates the changing dynamics of the world around this virus. -
2020-05-26
Pepperz Safety Poster
A safety poster on the window of Pepperz, the restaurant of the UTAS College Road student accommodation. Pepperz became a vital source of cheap cooked meals for many residents who relied on communal kitchens prior to the lock down. Access to those kitchens was restricted due to social distancing measures. -
05/26/2020
University Apartments on College Road
One section of the UTAS student accommodation on College Road, Sandy Bay. Here reside several hundred university students from across Tasmania, Australia and the world. At the beginning of the year residents would gather at social events, making new friends and reconnecting with old ones. But when the pandemic reached Tasmania the mood grew tense and students withdrew into their accommodation. -
2020-05-26
Student Laundry
A communal laundry used by over 100 residents of UTAS student accommodation in Sandy Bay. In order to maintain social distancing, only 3 people can be in the laundry at any time. -
2020-05-26
Isolation Entertainment
A photo showing a slice of quince and apple pie and the set-up for the board game 'Wingspan,' both symbols of the happier moments of the pandemic for me. Staying at home has given me the opportunity to make ridiculous amounts of pie - something I've always wanted to do - and play ridiculous amounts of board game, which I've always loved. It's important to find things to enjoy right now, and these are some of mine. -
2020-05-26
Disclosure quarantine music release
My favourite UK electronic band, Disclosure, released a new single from their forthcoming album "Energy" during lockdown. The track, also called "Energy" is a work of house/electronic music art that reflects the times we are currently facing. It's uplifting, direct, exotic, punchy and a lot of fun to listen to. -
2020-05-26
Have you got your dot? - COVID-safe UTas
After Tasmanian restrictions were eased for the first time on Monday 18 May, these signs started to appear around the University of Tasmania's Sandy Bay campus. They show the university's response to allowing a limited number of people on campus daily and the safety procedure of having a temperature check and wearing a sticker to confirm that each person on campus is well. -
2020-04-24
Lighting a Candle for our ANZACs
On ANZAC day this year, while usual memorial ceremonies were cancelled, Australians were encouraged to take part at home. This is a photo of the candle I lit at 6 a.m. to commemorate Australia's past and current servicemen and women as the ABC broadcast the National Service at the Australian War Memorial. -
05/18/2020
Tasmanian Hospital Remain Closed to Visitors
While some restrictions have begun to gradually ease in Tasmania, hospitals remain closed to visitors in order to keep staff and patients safe from the spread of COVID-19. -
05/12/2020
State ABC's fight it out on Facebook
HUM402 Last week ABC Darwin asked on Facebook: "How do you feel about a travel bubble for the NT, Western Australia and South Australia?" Unexpectedly, the ABC pages for the various Australian states responded and the comments erupted into a hilarious "fight" between them all. -
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. -
04/08/2020
Australian 'Smart Traveller' World Travel Advisory Map
SmartTraveller is the Australian Government's travel advisory website. This may be a historical first: every continent on the SmartTraveller map is red. The government's official advice is 'Do Not Travel' for everywhere in the world. It's a striking visual that sums up the universality of the pandemic experience. -
2020-05-22
"My Plans vs. 2020" Meme
A meme I created and posted on a Facebook group, on the topic of the year 2020. Comprised of two images taken from the opening sequence of "Shaun the Sheep", demonstrating how my plans for the year have been ruined by 2020. It summarises my feelings that all the events of the year has ruined all the plans I had, and that it has not been a great year. -
2020-05-25
Stephenie Meyer's "Midnight Sun" Announcement
The announcement made on Meyer’s website which says that Midnight Sun, a novel which tells the story of Twilight from the perspective of the character Edward Cullen, will finally be published August 4th. The announcement acknowledges the passion people have for the Twilight series, and hopes to remind the readers of that fun in these unprecedented times. -
2020-05-25
Delayed Shipping Email
An email which states that due to international shipping issue related to COVID-19 they anticipate the order will be shipped late April/early May. At the time of contributing to the archive (late May) the item had still not arrived. It's frustrating that the delay has been this long. HUM402 -
2020-05-13
Becoming Austen heroines in Quarantine
An article on whimn.com reflecting on how the novels and adaptations of Jane Austen are not only great isolation comfort reads, but mimic the rhythm of life in isolation. -
2020-06-24
Problems with government policy concerning schools
[Curatorial Note]: Description and thoughts on new policies for sanitation and safety within early education classrooms. -
04/13/2020
Racism and Covid-19
This image was a part of a Facebook post. It is evidently racist and indicates an underlying suspicion of the ‘Chinese’ community which has arisen out of the Covid-19 pandemic. Discussion of the cause of the Covid-19 outbreak, particularly regarding its supposed origins in a wet market, has contributed to a growth in anti-Chinese sentiment and ethnocentric thought in Tasmania. The image depicts a toy bat on a plate, with the caption describing it as a ‘Chinese meal’. This refers to the belief that bats are commonly eaten in China and that such practices caused the Covid-19 outbreak. The last line of the post is also evidently racist, with the name ‘Sum Ting Wong’ often being derogatively used by racist individuals to refer to Chinese and other ‘Asian’ people in Australia. It must be noted, however, that not all Tasmanians believe such horrid tropes. I immediately was horrified when I saw this post, and others I have showed it to have reacted in disgust. Nevertheless, it sadly still represents a faction of the community who have reacted to Covid-19 with suspicion and racism. From my personal experience, I feel as though this racism has reduced to some degree in the community, as the virus has spread throughout the world and beyond China. -
2020-05-17
#KeepOurMobSafe Campaign
The Australian Government has launched a campaign to #keepourmobsafe. This image is of a screenshot of an ad for the campaign, which the government is using to educate Indigenous Australians of the risk of Covid-19. The ads appear to be targeting Indigenous Australians living in remote communities, giving them tips on how to stop the spread of Covid-19. The campaign utilises indigenous artwork and slang to appear 'relatable'. -
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. -
05/01/2020
Revisiting Old Hobbies
HUM402 This cartoon of a man with a mask on and a ventriloquist doll really exemplifies time in quarantine, with both a new sense humour but also a newfound urge to try old and new activities. It shows how with all this time we all have at the moment, people are either going back to old hobbies or trying new ones. -
04/19/2020
Loeb Classical Library - Harvard University Press International
In light of the Pandemic the Harvard University Press decided to allow Schools and Institutions access to the Loeb Classical Library for free, Yay! This is very useful for people whose institutions apply; people studying classics who cannot access libraries are able to instead use E-Books. Yet there are some interesting elements regarding this. Firstly it is restricted to Schools and Institutions who contact the Harvard university, which means that people doing independent research during this time cannot do it, while I can understand the reasoning behind it, I also feel as though there is a certain elitism; students and members of institutions are able to access these resources while people who may want to while they are in quarantine and isolation are unable; now is the time when have the least money to spend and the most time to fill, yet unless they are part of an institution given by permission they cannot read these classical texts. The second more interesting part of this is disconnect between the quote by Horace that they led the tweet with "May I have a goodly supply of books and food to last the year" and the limitations that they set on the free-period. The Harvard University Press decided to have it last 2 months; while I do not think that should be criticized for opening their library for free, I also find amusement in the 10 month gap between Horace and the policy - they could have found a better quote. -
05/18/2020
An Example of Quarantine Romance Fiction
This is one of many examples of quarantine or lockdown themed romance and erotica currently for sale on Amazon Australia, reflecting trends in comfort reading, the response of entertainers and creators to the crisis, and the way COVID-19 has become inescapable in popular culture. *HUM402 *Photo of a kindle screen, showing the bookcover -
2020-03-29
Pandemic Monopoly
HUM402 The image depicts the creation of Pandemic Monopoly by a Hobart resident. The homemade board game uses toilet paper as currency, referring to the toilet paper shortage seen across Tasmanian supermarkets. The board game presents players with the opportunity to 'own' key Hobart locations. However, instead of mortgage, houses and hotels, the game allows players to buy hospitals and clinics to place on the properties. Centrelink, the Australian governments social security service, features heavily on the board game, indicating the rise in unemployment due to the pandemic. Whilst being used for comical purposes, the game also critiques the Tasmanian governments early handling of Covid-19 crisis via a chance card, which states "You have a fever, dry cough and Pneumonia to boot but despite having all of the symptoms, you haven't knowingly come into contact with a known carried so they won't test you for Covid-19. The Royal Hobart Hospital sends you home. Get out of iso [isolation] free." This refers to the Tasmanian government in early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic refusing to test individuals who had not been in contact with a known case, or had not left the country. -
2020-03-25
Australian Government formal COVID-19 mass text alert
The Australian Government sent out a very curt mass text on the 25th of March to warn Australian citizens to follow COVID-19 guidelines. I chose this item because the timing and brevity was viewed by many as 'too little, too late'. It's a reflection of the fact that it took our government a week or two to absorb and act on the seriousness of the situation - not long before this message came out, the Prime Minister had still been encouraging people to attend football matches in high-capacity stadiums. Though the government eventually recognised the risk, and acted more decisively than some other countries, a large chunk of credit must go to Australians with the foresight to begin acting in advance of government instruction. By the time I received this message, my workplace had already been shut down to a work-from-home situation for a full two weeks, and the University of Tasmania's campuses had been shut down for five days. (HUM404) -
2020-04-23
Advertising with a Twist
An image of a restaurant in Canada, that has a very funny way of advertising. It really demonstrates our change in humour and also a change in advertising. -HUM402 -
2020-04-14
Nature Journal Page
A picture of a page in my nature journal. I started a nature journal when lockdown was announced in order to make sure I was going outside every day and also to share with my girlfriend when quarantine was over. Communicating online is so important, but I also wanted a means to communicate with her that felt like it could be kept forever. -
2020-05-01
Sorry, Straight People: Lockdown Culture is Just Lesbian Culture
An article on how elements of 'lockdown culture' are attitudes and pasttimes commonly attributed to the lesbian experience. -
2020-03-25
How quickly things change
This is two announcements concerning the status of the Utas Libraries; the one on the left is an announcement by a teacher which says that said the Morris Miller library was still open for picking up books, actually going into the library had been suspended by that point. Later that same day the University published an official statement that announced the total closure of the library. This was in keeping with government restrictions and guidelines, many libraries had been closed. This article also helps display the difficulty that some students have been experiencing in acquiring sources for their study have been made more difficult, especially since browsing is impossible, as a student can't go into the library and search the section of the library for relevant resources. This source also shows a way that educational institutions attempt to help students by scanning resources so that students can access high-use materials.