pandemic

#levylockdownzine

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Levy Lockdown Project is a collaborative, hyperlocal effort to document and make sense of the strange period of global history we are living through.
As the UK entered its third national lockdown in January 2021, I invited people living in Levenshulme to share their images and thoughts about the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on them. This 64-page zine features the work of 36 contributors.

This is the first output for my Peshkar commission for a socially engaged photography project, which I was awarded in early 2020 – before the pandemic took hold. I initially gave art boxes to six local women and then opened the project up wider to anyone who wanted to join, via a Facebook group and Instagram hashtag. When I started working on the zine I put out an open call, and some contributors came forward who hadn’t been part of the project until that point.

Next step is to build a little website for the work as there is a lot more than made it into the zine. It’s been a good little learning project and I’m proud of the zine – it looks ace. Copies are available to buy from here.

 

Big Brother House

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When Covid-19 hit and schools closed in March 2020, it was a huge upheaval in all our lives – but particularly in the lives of young children. Over the following year – during which we had two national periods of homeschooling (plus another nine-day stint when one of our school bubbles was told to self isolate) – I  watched my sons carefully and tried to capture some of the madness from their point of view.

Levy Lockdown – the participatory project

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I’m currently working in a different way to usual. Since late January I’ve been facilitating a socially engaged approach to documenting the pandemic in my neighbourhood, Levenshulme.

Last year – before the world changed – I was awarded a commission by Peshkar, an arts organisation in Oldham, to make some participatory work with migrant-origin communities in the town. Their funding is coming from InterMEDs, a stand of the Erasmus programme. Sadly the UK will no longer be benefitting from Erasmus due to Brexit.

My original proposal had been to work face to face with Roma groups but inevitably this plan had to be abandoned. After lots of thought and a fair bit of worry about how I could fulfil the requirements of this project – which has to be delivered in September – I decided to build on the lockdown book project I developed last year.

Having had children at home from Christmas until 8 March  – and aware from bitter experience that they could be told to self isolate at a moment’s notice – I’m doing all of this online. But I’m now encouraging (and occasionally cajoling) people in my area to submit their own images (photographic and otherwise) and personal thoughts about what the pandemic and lockdown has meant to them.

The hope is that I’ll end up with a huge mishmash of different material from a wide range of residents about what the past year has been like and how they’ve coped. I can then hopefully pull at strands and develop some narratives which fit the original brief. But almost more importantly, we’ll have created a fascinating and worthwhile community archive about this later stage of the pandemic – which will complement what I did before.

I actually started off with a core group of six people from the original window portrait series – I created a small box of creative materials and a series of prompts and asked them to get stuck in. Then I realised I could broaden the project out, so I created a Facebook group on a whim and started using the Instagram hashtag #levylockdownproject.  I’ve been posting occasional prompts into the group and people are dipping in and out as they want.

It’s fairly organic and I’m trying to be relaxed about the lack of control – not something which comes that easily to me! That’s where we all are at the moment and what I’m able to do is limited by our circumstances.

Here are a few of the wonderful bits shared with me so far:

 

 

Levy Lockdown Projects – the book

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It’s been an intense few months. My Kickstarter was successful and I managed to raise almost £4,500 from 171 backers to turn Levy Lockdown Portraits into a book. On the day the crowdfunder closed, however, I had a family bereavement. Since then I’ve arranged a funeral and had a child sent home from school to self-isolate.

But we got through it and despite all these external challenges, I’ve managed to single-handedly design the book and even came up with a nice concept for the cover. This week – after recovering from the initial shock of what 400 books looks like – I’ve posted and hand delivered copies to almost all the project backers. Feedback so far has been really great. Now for phase two: sell the remaining books.

If anyone would like to buy a copy of the book, they are available for £15 plus £2.95 UK postage. If you live in an M19 postcode I’m happy to deliver free of charge. Contact me on info@ciaraleeming.co.uk if you’d like one.

Additionally, from 22nd-31st October, 60 of the 260 portraits in the book will be exhibited in my community as part of Levy Fringe Arts Festival. Sadly, due to the current situation with “stupid Coronavirus” (as my kids call it), this will be a ticketed event – bookings can be made over here.

 

Levy Lockdown Portraits book crowdfunder

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I spent six weeks of the lockdown documenting my community through the medium of window portraits.

Today I’m launching a crowdfunding campaign in the hope of turning this work into a book, Levy Lockdown Portraits.

Over the course of 38 days – ending when lockdown restrictions began to be lifted on 31 May – I shot more than 250 portraits of households in Levenshulme, Manchester, creating a surreal, poignant and historically significant body of work.

I think this work deserves a more permanent home than an online gallery and would like to put together a self-published containing the entire series across more than 200 pages. I’ll be designing and editing it myself to keep costs as low as possible but need help to fund the printing.

I’m asking people who enjoyed the work or were part of the series to consider supporting the project by purchasing a copy in advance. You can even get your name printed in the book as a backer. Please visit my Kickstarter page to learn more and don’t forget to share in your networks. I think Levy Lockdown Portraits will be a fab souvenir of this odd time once this pandemic is behind us.

Kickstarter is an ‘all or nothing’ platform so if I don’t raise the print costs, the book won’t be made and your pledge will be returned.

Thanks for your support!

 

Locked down

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What a bizarre few weeks. We’re now 30 days into official lockdown in the UK, and it feels to me like some of the paralysis of the initial days of Covid-19 has started to loosen. I’m still working as a journalist – working at snail’s pace on a number of features for Big Issue North which for the large part have nothing to do with the pandemic – and am starting to get the sense that many people are getting into a groove with this strange new normal. People I contact are responding fairly promptly for the first time in weeks. My own work pace is glacial but things are slowly getting done.

One of the ways I’ve been responding to this weirdness is to pick up my camera. Ironically I’ve found the past month an easier time than normal to be creative – despite having a three year old and a five year old in tow most of the time. I’ve been photographing the lockdown on a daily basis from their perspective. Something that has always felt uncomfortably self-indulgent to me – sharing photos of my kids and our own daily life – suddenly feels more legitimate, perhaps due to some odd journalistic psychology thing because it’s now framed within ‘a story’. Make of that what you will. These daily vignettes – which I’ve dubbed “Big Brother House” can be seen on my Instagram page.

The other way I’m documenting the lockdown is through window portraits of people living in my neighbourhood of Levenshulme. Lots of photographers are doing similar work at the moment but I love the way the glass provides a beautifully surreal visual metaphor for our current social distancing requirements. The participants have to come close to the window to make use of the light. I’m often closer to them than the permitted two metres but they’re behind glass so it’s fine. I’m making most of these during my daily outing with my kids so I have to be quick – more than three minutes and they’re bored. Some of them are on my Instagram and the full album can be seen on Facebook for the time being. This will be updated as I add more…

Stay well.