Staying Apart Keeps Us Together

Staying Apart Keeps Us Together is a collaborative documentary work produced over the course of Melbourne’s 2020-2021 Covid-19 lockdowns. This project provides an intimate, poetic glimpse into the daily lives of young people living in Melbourne during a global pandemic. Over 20 rolls of film were distributed to a variety of participants, ranging from photographers to artists to friends or acquaintances. Each roll was delivered alongside a series of prompts designed to gently direct the project and its participants to capture their day-to-day experience whilst in lockdown. In the end, some prompts were followed, some were altered, but mostly they fell by the way-side. Roll by roll, film was shot and returned to me, each participant having captured their own distinct voice and experience, yet each profoundly familiar. Due to state-enforced social-distancing restrictions I was no longer permitted to see faces across a dance floor or at a bar; drinking, smiling and sharing touch or conversation. These people were hidden from me. I knew they were painfully close although legally out of reach, all experiencing the same life-altering event as myself. Throughout time, communities have been able to survive through hardship by collecting in shared spaces to exchange stories, meals and moments of joy or pain. Within the world of Covid-19, these shared physical spaces are no longer ones of safety. The virus has morphed them into places tainted by contagion, danger and risk. Although it began as a vehicle for the social connection that I felt deprived of, the project grew to be something so much more. By putting cameras  into the hands of many separate individuals, a socially-distanced, shared space of sorts was created within Staying Apart Keeps Us Together – a space that is simultaneously virus-free yet entirely enveloped by it.

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Staying Apart Keeps Us Together, 2021  

video and photography  

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Untitled, 2020  

photography  

383 x 548 mm

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Untitled, 2020  

photography  

383 x 548 mm

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Untitled, 2021  

photography  

548 x 383 mm

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Untitled, 2021  

photography  

548 x 383 mm

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Untitled, 2021  

photography  

383 x 548 mm

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Untitled, 2020  

photography  

383 x 548 mm

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Untitled, 2021  

photography  

383 x 548 mm

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