- Hello, everyone. Welcome to our Cross Continental Conversation, bringing together the National Portrait Gallery in Australia with our sister institution, the National Portrait Gallery London. I'd like to extend a warm welcome to everyone joining us today on Zoom and Facebook Live for what I'm sure is going to be a fascinating discussion. My name is Gill Raymond, I work with the digital team here at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra Australia. And I'm thrilled to be hosting this event today. Please use the chat function in Zoom and the comments on Facebook to share with us any of your questions and observations. And I'll do my very best to convey as many of those to the panel as I can throughout the course of our conversation. Perhaps you'd like to kick off by letting us know where you're joining us from today. The National Portrait Gallery and many of our staff are in lockdown around Canberra, and we're lucky enough to live on the beautiful lands of the Ngambi and the Ngunnawal peoples. I'd like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging. And I'd also like to extend that same respect to the traditional custodians of the lands on which you're coming to us from today. I'd also really like to acknowledge the valued support of the British Council in this programme to you as part of the UK Australian season. A lot of words have been added to the word times and used to describe these past 18 months. Extraordinary, unprecedented, uncertain, we've been in lockdown, in bubbles, in ISO, and that dreaded pivot has launched itself off the netball court and into our pandemic vernacular. Independently, the National Portrait Gallery is in Australia and the UK undertook to capture the global mood of this past period through three striking photographic projects. Hold Still, The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize And In Living Memory, the National Photographic Portrait Price. What better places to mirror the human story than our National Portrait Galleries? And what better medium than the immediacy of photography? It is this nexus of portraiture, photography and powerful human stories that guides our conversation today. Joining us from the National Portrait Gallery in London is Denise Vogelsang, director of communications and digital who along with other passionate NPG staff, had the incredible undertaking of bearing witness to over 30,000 submissions for the whole steel project. Welcome Denise and thank you so much for joining us. Magda Keaney. Magda Keaney is the senior curator for photographs at the NPG, London. Magda is a close friend of the NPG here in Australia, and indeed we were lucky enough to have her as one of our curators in the very early days, following the establishment of our own NPG. Thank you so much for giving up your time to connect with us again, Magda. So lovely to see you. Joining them from NPG here in Australia is Tara James. Her official title is exhibitions project coordinator, but we affectionately refer to her as the portrait prize guru. She's the friend of photographers all over Australia, many of whom I'm, which I'm sure are joining us today. And finally, our director collections and exhibitions, Sandra Bruce, wears many hats, living and breathing the living memory exhibition since it was launched. Chief exhibition wrangler and the adoptive parent of a fabulous photo bombing feline, who I'm sure make an appearance throughout the course of this conversation today. Welcome to our wonderful panellists. I'd like to hand over to Denise to kick off the conversation today.
- Well, good morning, those of you in the UK and good evening to those of you in Australia. So Hold Still. I mean, where do I start? This is an incredible project that began in 2020 and the early days of the national lockdown in the UK. And obviously as a national portrait gallery, our role is to really tell the story of Britain through people's stories. And we felt that we needed to respond to the pandemic in some way to try and capture the moment of what was happening to people. Because one of those words that have been used, it was unprecedented in our history. So we worked together with our patron, the Duchess of Cambridge. Who's been the economy's patron since 2012 and is very passionate about photography on a project called Hold Still. And the idea was to capture-- So there's an alarm going off, no need to worry. The idea was to capture that moment in history through people's portraits. So we launched a project where we went out to the whole nation, it was free to enter, there was no age limits and we asked people to send in portraits that captured their experience. And what was quite different about this for us, was it wasn't gonna be judged on artistic merit. It was just about the emotion and the experience conveyed through the photograph. The response to the project was incredible, like more than we ever could have imagined. I mean, I think partly due to having the Duchess's involvement, enabled us to get huge amount of publicity for the project. But people immediately started entering their photographs and by the end of the six week entry period, we had over 31,000 entries, which I say was way beyond what we ever could have expected. A really widespread coverage across every bit of British media from the Southern to the Telegraph. And we were amazed by the span of entries. I mean the youngest entrance was four. I think the oldest was 85. They were from literally every corner of the UK. And what was also amazing was the quality and the incredible stories that the entrance were sharing with us. I mean, we were really blown away by that. We then went through the very difficult process of selecting 100 images to create a digital exhibition. Which was really difficult. I mean, I've said several times, we could have had an exhibition of 500, 600 images because the quality was just so amazing. So we created the digital exhibition, which we launched in September of 2020. And again, incredible response from the public. I mean, to date, it's had 6 million views, which is more than anything that we've ever done before. And the project kind of grew and developed. The original idea was a digital exhibition. And then there was a real sense that people wanted to see these images in the flesh. And we were very lucky that the digital exhibition was supported by Taylor Wessing, one of our long-term sponsors. And then we worked with the CO-OP, who are the supermarket chain in the UK who enabled us to make the 100 images into an outdoor exhibition. This was fantastic because obviously we still had locked down restrictions so people couldn't visit exhibitions. But what we did was through poster sites across the UK. So these were kind of on the side of buildings and on bus stops. I think we've got some images that we can show you. We created this exhibition of the 100 images, and we tried to take the images back to the communities where they had come from as much as possible. So we had over 400 posters in 80 locations across the whole of the UK. The National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire in the UK also did an outdoor digital display of all 100 images. And again, it was incredible because of the nature of it. We estimate that over 5 million people we're able to see the outdoor exhibition. And then it just kept growing, because we had lots of people saying to us, are you gonna make a book? So then as if by magic, we made a book. And again, the response to the book has been incredible. We've had so many wonderful comments from people, people buying like five or six copies for their children because they say this is gonna be really important way to remember kind of what we went through. So in response-- In conclusion, I suppose, the response in terms of the number of people who have interacted with it has been incredible. But even more than that I think is what has meant to people. And I think this is a lovely image just to show. These are some of the entrance who went out to find their posters and had their pictures taken with them. And this just gives you a sense of I think, the really life-changing effects the prize had on the people who entered, the photographers who entered. And they've told us many, many stories about how being caught a cold still really helped them through a very difficult time. But also the comments we've had from all over world, from the public saying to us, that seeing these images and seeing other people going through the same experiences that they were going through really helped them through this very difficult time, which has obviously affected us all in one way or another. And I've really honestly, I mean, I've worked in museums and galleries for over 20 years now and I've never seen comments like it. Really genuinely has it made a difference to people. So we're very, very proud of it. So I think I've definitely used up my time. So I will pass on to Magda, she's gonna talk about our photographic portrait prize.
- Thanks, Denise. Thank you so much. And if we just can move on to the next slide, that would be fantastic. Yeah. So the Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize isn't actually an initiative that was set up in response to COVID and locked down, unlike Hold Still, as Denise just explained. So it's a long running photographic portrait prize. And in fact, it kind of has lineage at the gallery back to 1993. So it's a photographic prize that is, I guess, a showcase of a photographic talent. And so that it's judged anonymously based on images. And in contrast to Hold Still, it has a prize money attached to it. So it's got a 15,000 pound first price. So it's really a longstanding photographic award that is intended to kind of survey and present the best of photographic portraits from around the world. And I think another key difference with Hold Still, the images that we judge for the Taylor Wessing Prize are all judged anonymously and with no other context other than the image itself. Whereas I think in Hold Still, something that was quite important and moving and looking at the images, was the relationship between text that the entrance wrote about the photograph that they were experiencing. So it wasn't surprising though, to the gallery that in the 2020 award, we had a kind of overspill of experience from COVID and locked down into the Taylor Wessing Prize. And that often happens. So the events that are happening in the world often are reflected in what the entrance that we see in the Taylor Wessing Prize. And I just wanted to really talk you through a few of those to, I suppose, talk about highlights, perhaps some different approaches to Hold Still. Though of course, professional photographers did also enter images into Hold Still, but what I'm showing you, I guess, is work that was made in response to COVID and locked down, but as more sustained artistic projects. So the first slide that you saw was in fact, the winner last year. And it's a series of portraits by Ellis Tomlinson. Who's a really, really re well-regarded British photographer and who generally works in series. And this was a group of portraits from her series last summer, as you can see. And what she did, it was quite a simple premise, but she set out to make these portraits of young people who hadn't gotten to have their prom, who hadn't gotten to have their high school graduation. And she made a kind of in the break between the first and second lockdowns, and you can see she took them outside and they're simple, but very, very beautiful and powerful portraits. So that was the winner last year. With no intention that the winner had to be related in any way to COVID this was the winner of the prize. The second prize, which is the next slide was also a serious related to COVID. And again, it's a single image made by quite a prominent British photographer called Lydia Goldblatt, who basically documented her family experience and her experience as a mother and a photographer during COVID. And this has her daughter Eden, sitting in a kind of seedling tent. And it has a kind of psychological intensity I think to it around COVID. And then you've kind of got the setting of the beautiful garden around. Just moving on to the next slide. So there are our first and second prize winners that very much engaged with COVID and locked down. Just also last year we saw-- And I wanted to share this image with you. A number of photographers engaging with kind of the bush fires that were happening around the world, in America and Australia, particularly. And this is a photograph made by Gideon Mendel, actually in Australia and which was a finalist in the award. Yeah, and really powerful image. Just continuing on to the next slide, if that's okay. So I basically just a couple more slides that actually I'm sharing with you from this year's prize. So these actually haven't been seen or exhibited yet, and our prize will open in London at the start of November. And we're super excited that it's actually a physical exhibition this year. Last year we went online with it, which was fantastic, but there's just nothing like the prints and having that physical experience. And this is a series again we saw in our Taylor Wessing Prize, that the experience of COVID and locked down still has come through quite powerfully into 2021. So this is a series by an American photographer called Donovan Smallwood, and it's a series of beautiful portraits he made in Central Park. He himself, an African-American African-American photographer who lives close to Central Park and spend a lot of time in that area, meeting people, taking photos during lockdown. And in the next slide. This is a really beautiful, simple, but very striking portrait by Kois Miah, who's a Bangladeshi, a British Bangladeshi photographer. And this is a photograph of his father taken in lockdown. And the context of this is during lockdown, Kois and his dad lived together again for the first time in twenty-five years. And Kois explains that he kind of feels the portrait expresses his father's strength and personality, and also kind of perhaps a sense of the challenges of lockdown, but also the annoyance of a dad having to live with his photographer son for again. They are really beautiful portrait. And the next slide, I think. Yeah. And just finally, I wanted to share with you another entrant from this year and someone whose work you probably know quite well, I think. And that's the wonderful Lisa Sorgini. And this is a photograph that she took during lockdown, as you can see in the title, 'From Behind Glass'. So this idea of exploring motherhood and family connection during this time of kind of isolation and part of a series that she made, making these portraits, 'Behind Glass'. So yeah, thank you so much. I will just hand over to Tara.
- Thanks so much Magda. Yeah, it's interesting 'cause Lisa is in our Living Memory Exhibition. So it's already those correlations across states of our photographers and stories being told that's really lovely. As Gill introduced, I work on the prizes, so I'm exhibitions coordinator here, but I do organise a lot of the stuff to do with the prizes. I thought I'd give you a little bit of history about the National Photographic Portrait Prize and because we're on a time limit, I think we'll call it the NPPP, which is affectionately known here at the gallery, anyway. Otherwise we'll run out of time. So the NPPP is in its 14th year and it's a prize, an annual prize that celebrates portrait chart and it's open to aspiring or professional Australian photographers over the age of 18. It launched in 2007, and this year was its 14th year. It's really regarded now as a leading prize exhibition by the photographic community, I think in Australia. And it's also a very, very popular exhibition with audiences and also staff at the NPG. I think it's because of the stories it tells and it's that wonderful balance of portrait chart and a social documentary of each year that it depicts. So the slide you can see is a copy of all of our past year's exhibition catalogues. So you can see just the amazing array of images and faces that are part of the exhibition. So generally there's around 40 finalists in the exhibition each year. And we grew from having, a couple of hundred entrance to usually getting to 2' to 3000 entries per year. And it's a wonderful prize. It's a $30,000 cash prize and $20,000 usually worth of equipment. And we have a few extra prizes like highly commended and the people's choice, which is a super popular one as well 'cause people get to engage in and vote on their own favourite. I really love the prize because I think it suits every pallet. There's something for everyone in it, and anyone can come into the gallery or see it online and find their own story in it. See something that you resonates with. So the slide you can see is our winners from 2007 to 2014, it's just such a beautiful array of portraits and differing faces of Australia. It's also-- One of the great things about it is it's a travelling exhibition. So it travels to lots of regional areas around Australia. I think it's been to almost every state and probably, I think about 58 venues that I last checked. So this is going to smaller galleries in regional areas. And I really love that about it because I've been at some of these venues where people go and see someone that looks like them or their own story hanging on a gallery wall. It's just really inspirational. So this is our slide, is the winners 2015 to 2020. So 2020 was a year that already had started to be affected by COVID that our exhibition was only open for a little while and then we had our first shutdown in Australia. Could you go onto the next slide please? So it's also the NPPP opening, is the best opening party we have at such a great night. And the next one. It's also one of.. Probably the last time, this is our 2019 opening. So you can see the amount of people there and it was back when we could all get together, look at art and drink champagne and have a wonderful time. So now I'm quite nostalgic for that time as well. But Sandra can talk about the changing face of the prize as we transitioned into Living Memory.
- Thanks, Tara. It's interesting, isn't it, to have a look at that party shopped from two years ago, and then the previous slide, which is one of the finalists in Living Memory shows-- There it is. Thank you, Robert. Shows people getting out and about for a New Year's Eve party and I don't know about the social distancing and that shot. But it kind of has that juxtaposition of people still wanting to get out and socialise and be together. But under this universal, sort of situation we've got with COVID-19. And that was really our starting point when we-- Last year when we started talking about what the NPPP might look like for 2021. And if we pop forward a couple of slides, Robert, just to the first shot of Living Memory. There it is. Last year because of the impacts of COVID and because of the previous situations that Australia had been through, before COVID we had bush fires, it had been-- And Gill mentioned this earlier on in her introduction. It has been all of the times, extraordinary times, hard times, times where we had to show our resilience and our love for one another. And because we were going through all of these things, when we started talking about what in NPPP could look like, knowing that the photographers were going to be capturing their lived experiences from essentially October, 2019, right through until March this year, we thought we needed to recognise what these experiences has been like for people around Australia. And so we decided to create, I guess, a bit of a special edition of the NPPP, and we chose to call it Living Memory. We didn't put any strictures around what we wanted Australian photographers to shoot, we weren't asking them to go out and shoot lockdown or shoot isolation or shoot having to stay in their own homes. But we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that entrants would submit imagery from those periods, along with the smaller moments, along with those other moments in people's lives, where they're capturing portraits of their loved ones or capturing portraits of people that they meet. We absolutely knew that there would be a presence within this period. And so if we pop to the next slide, Robert. Tyler mentioned that we normally get about 40 finalists. We made the decision to give over an entire pavilion of our gallery for Living Memory. Normally we would give it about half of the amount of space. And so we have 79 works in Living Memory this year. And that's a tile of all of them. Just to give you a bit of a sense of the-- I guess, even just looking at them like that, there really is an amazing sense of drama captured within them. And going onto the next slide. It's interesting because we again, installed the exhibition and it was almost like Groundhog day for us. Last year, we managed to keep the NPP open for a couple of weeks. This year we had the NPP opened for a couple of weeks, and then we went into lock down again. And so we ended up with this beautiful offering to the Australian public that people couldn't enjoy in the space. However, part of our commitment to the artistic community of Australia, going through these hard times was to see what else we could do for our photographers that were able to, or that were lucky enough to become finalists, not just giving them more, as in doubling the number of finalists, but also we decided to offer them a bit of a supporting payment to help them get their work to us, which we don't normally do. And with the help of our team at the National Portrait Gallery, we also developed a series of mentoring and professional development opportunities that were starting to roll out for finalists now as well in spite of having to go into another lockdown. Prizes I think, they're really interesting because the subject matter is so diverse. And if we pop along to the next slide, when it comes to designing the show, we end up seeing these really interesting juxtapositions between works when we're lucky enough to be in the physical spaces, because it is about individual artists experiences being put alongside the next individual artistic experience. And so here these are, to be fair, two COVID shots. We have a couple being released from lockdown and going for a bit of a swim in the ocean right next to a young girl getting her fixed on a laptop at nighttime. And I think there are two scenes of lockdown that a lot of people can really resonate with. Now, if we go to the final slide in my little suite. This is a shot of the outside of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra and we have our lovely Living Memory billboard on the side. When we had to go into lockdown, two weeks into this exhibition, we knew that we couldn't, sort of just settle on saying, oh, well, what are we going to do? We absolutely decided that we have to turn the virtual world to our benefit again. And I guess this programme is one of those, but we've been working really hard to give everybody as much opportunity to enjoy Living Memory as possible, even though you can't actually, none of us can set foot in our building right now. And over the optimist, we have also decided, or we made the decision that rather than closing the exhibition on the 7th of November, as we would have had, if we'd had a normal year in Canberra, we've decided to extend the exhibition until the 16th of January, because we really do want, like Magda said earlier, we really do hope that people can come in and view the artworks that we've been waiting to seen in the flesh. As Magda said, there is nothing like seeing the work on the wall in the first person. Over to you Gill.
- Thanks so much to all of you for giving us an introduction to the three photographic projects that we're talking about in today's discussion. I think the first thing that struck us when we were thinking about developing this programme was the apparent commonality of humanist experience across the globe. And I think in some ways the similarities appeared to outweigh the differences. The backgrounds of the portraits might contain in our instance in EMU, rather than maybe a Robin, but the stories told the heartbreaks, the quiet moments, the small joys, the hope against adversity, all of these were strikingly homogenous themes. But the more we explored and dug around in the images, unique differences between our country started to emerge. I'd hazard a guess that probably Mullet Sporting Shearers may have not made an appearance in the 30,000 portraits in Hold Still, I could be wrong. I could be wrong. But I'm interested to hand back to our panel to maybe explore some of the similarities and differences that they've observed between our countries and our countries photographers response to this particular period in our time. Who would like to take a lead?
- How about I'll jump straight back in there and then maybe Tara we can have a little bit of fun with some of the images in our little quintessentially Australian section. I should probably note too that some of these experiences are intense and we can't lose sight of the fact that there are feelings of trauma and impact that do come through in some of the imagery and absolutely within the UK experience as well. And we're so honoured, not just from the photographers, but also honoured by the subjects to allow us into having these little snapshots of their lives. And we absolutely recognise that. In some cases we're seeing people in a really tough moment in their lives. But this first one that I wanted to bring up is a work that was shot just inside the timing for Living Memory. So entries opened, I think around the 23rd of October in 2019, and this portrait was shot two or three days later. And it's Ruby James, Inma by Adele Wilkes. And Adele was invited up to the centre of Australia by the local community to shoot at an official formal ceremony that celebrated older rule being handed back to its custodial owners. And what were they called? The tourist walks being stopped. So no longer-- From the 25th of October, you could no longer take a trek up all the route. As a sacred site, it was recognised that that was no longer appropriate. And so Inma is a traditional dance ceremony that was part of that day of commemoration and celebration of older being returned to the Anaku people. And I just feel as though it's such an important moment. The portrait itself, there's a beautiful formality to it that late afternoon, early evening light coming across from the left, it really is the red centre. You can see it infused in not just the ground, but in the very light itself. And I find it really extraordinary that this was a moment that is such an important moment in Australian history. And it's one that will stand the test of time. But really it has been what came after it with bush fires and with COVID-19. It's extraordinary to think that this was only a little over 18 months ago that this occurred, or just nearly two years ago that this occurred.
- [Tara] Should we move on to the next slide?
- [Sandra] Yes. What was the--
- Yeah, just a warning, I guess, for everyone that there are some triggering images for this one with bushfire photos from Australia, and to acknowledge that we are still healing, repairing and still rebuilding from those fires. So yeah, just a little bit about it was in the 2019 to '20, bush fires burned across many states of Australia with catastrophic effects. There was 33 people who lost their lives. 17 million hectares of land was decimated and over 3000 homes destroyed. So we really thank the people of the generosity of sharing these stories that actually got word out there of what was happening in Australia and also we received lots of help. So this first image is, it's by Alison Marion and it was taken on New Year's Eve in 2019. It's just an iconic image now. So it's taken on her iPhone and it's not digitally enhanced. So this was the colour of the sky. It's her and her family playing Mallacoota by boat to escape ad it's her son Fin steering the boat. There's just-- It's just an amazing image. There's just a palpable tension in there. And that feeling when I look at it, I get that feeling of not being able to take a deep breath. And it went from Allison, who's a photographer taking this photo in a real life moment. And I think within a couple of days, it was picked up by media and it was shared thousands and thousands of times across the world. So it really is an iconic photo of that time. And if we could move on to the next slide. This one is, it's, for me, it's that bitter sweetness of just horror and hope. So it's by photographer, Rachel Mounsey and the subject is Max James. It was taken a month after our last slide in East Gippsland. Max is a conservation biologist and he's standing in the charred remains of his incinerated property. And Max now documents the return of the native plant, animal and bird life as the land heals. Those really beautiful thing in the subject statement. So Max said at the time of his photo being taken, "All has been erased, nature has to come back through a black blank canvas. It's a lamentable game of survival, but beautiful to watch". And so you can check up on Max and since the fires, he's rigorously documented the return of the bush. And I think he's up to 101 native birds that returned to his property. So it's a very confronting image, but our important story to tell, I think as well.
- Yeah, it makes that a real sense of optimism around his statement, didn't he? About walking out onto the brand or his property and just thinking well, and while he was standing there, kind of just, I guess, contemplating, he started to hear noise. He heard, I think the screech of a king parrot or something like that. And that was when he grabbed his notebook and started-- Started to catalogue the regeneration and the regrowth on his property right from day one, which is a really interesting approach. Our next slide is one that I particularly like. I mean, Australia is absolutely known for our beaches and our lifesaving flags. We know what it's like to be able to get down to the coast and go for a swim and hang out, and get some sun safely. And so this could very well be just another day in Australia. However, there is caution tape wrapped around the park bench because with public health orders and physical distancing and all of those sorts of things, for a long time we weren't allowed to just relax and do all of the things that we're used to doing that we've conditioned to be able to do like get close to people and be able to touch people and able to sit down on the same bench as someone else. And so for me, this was a really interesting, almost quietly surreal telling of what Australia has looked like, probably since last March, really. Tara, I think the next one is one of your favourites, isn't it?
- That's right. I love this photo so much. As Gill touched on it, I just know it could not have been taken anywhere else in the world, but Australia. To me, it's like a steal from an Aussie movie just called me to action by an onset photographer. It's Mullet Magic, which I also love the title and it's by photographer Leith Alexander and it's taken in Narrogin in WA. And it's shares on their smoker break or morning tea for those people joining us from overseas, I don't know if you have smoker. But I just love that it takes this sort of, Larry can view of these shearers are outside, Leith's taking their photograph and they start getting heckled by the other sharers proposing for photos. So the lovely guy in the middle sort of giving a little bit of lick back, it's just that capture of a moment that I love so much about photography. And it's the same thing for me. It's always visceral with photography for me. Like I can feel the heat of that tin shed and imagine the flies flying around and those smells of the woodshed, the lanolin and the shape. So I just think it's just such a beautiful image.
- I don't think everybody's on the same page when it comes that but I think everybody can agree that they've had a stranglehold on a part of Australian culture for a long time.
- Yeah and they kept working all during COVID. Those regional workers kept on working through the whole thing.
- And then the last one is this year's winner, isn't it? Joe Pratley's extraordinary portrait of a pharmacol drought story.
- [Tara] Yeah. Again, it's wonderful. The similarities to the Alison Marion knees, even just this stock red landscape, a drought effected a farmer called David Kelly. And I think it's in Forbes, New South Wales. Yeah. And it just-- It was interesting with this one because it's telling a regional story and a story of drought and very important stories that a lot of people related to, but so many people also related to that isolation and not like what you're facing is insurmountable. So he's walking into a dust storm. So there was all these really beautiful things that people drew from this photo. Like some people saw the hope with the sun shining from the left-hand or like he's walking into the future. So that's one of the beautiful things about photography, is everyone can look at this and tell their own story, but but it was an important one to tell about regional Australian farmers affected by drought. And his artist's statement, 'Sometimes you wonder why you're still here', is just so simple, but so heartbreaking as well.
- It also raises an ongoing question that I'm always happy to have a conversation about. I don't know if we'll have time later on, Denise and Magda, but we'll see. Is, is it a portrait if you can't see someone's face? And with all of the masks that are being worn, that's very possibly a fair conversation for us to have. Denise, how about the UK experience? Those uniquely English moments that you captured in home.
- I mean, I think one of the themes that came across really strongly was the National Health Service, the NHS, which I think generally people who live in the UK are always very positive and grateful for, but I think during the pandemic that came just something that everyone felt very passionate about. People really wanted to kind of express their gratitude. And we have many, many entries depicting health workers, nurses, doctors. It was a really strong theme. So I think the next slide shows just one of those, which is a portrait of a nurse called Melanie by another nurse called Joanna Churchill. And it really became, I think quite iconic part of Hold Still. So earlier on in the slides I showed, we actually created a mural of this on a wall in the Northern quarter in Manchester where the the French golfers we created as a painting. And it's also on the cover of Hold Still book. And I think it really, I think it's very powerful because it's taken by a nurse of a nurse. So there's a very strong kind of personal connection and understanding. And Joanna, the photographer, when she talked about it talked that she wanted to kind of capture that anxiety really for the NHS workers and the patients, especially in those early days of the pandemic, when we didn't have a vaccine, we didn't know, there was a real worry in the UK that our hospitals would be overrun. It was a genuine concern and she captured that moment. And obviously it's just absolutely stunning photograph. The way the light is coming in on her. So there was lots of photographs of NHS workers, but there was also photographs that were expressing that gratitude from people in the UK. So the next one is a photograph, which has the rainbow symbol, which again, was such a theme in Hold Still because in the UK, people were putting rainbows everywhere. They were drawing them on the papers, they were putting them in their windows, they were wearing them on t-shirts. And it was a symbol of kind of hope, but also a way to say, thank you to the NHS and all the other key workers. And this is a fabulous photo of some children. And they're the children of key workers because at that period of locked down in the UK, the schools were closed apart from children of key workers 'cause key workers had to continue to work. So these children of key workers created this amazing, thank you. This is from Sheringham Primary school in Norfolk. So a lot of these children, their parents were working in the NHS. And so obviously a very worrying time for the parents and the children, but this sort of joyous thing came out of it in this amazing, Thank You in their playground which that photographer Chris Taylor captured. And then the next slide shows another example of the saying, Thank You. So every Thursday evening at eight o'clock across the UK, people started clapping. So they stood outside the houses. They thought to their windows, they bind pans. There were people were playing instruments everywhere. And it was a really very moving, I think for everyone that there was this moment, kind of once a week, where people felt, even though they physically could come together, felt like they could come together and they could just say, Thank You. And this is very sweet because this is Iris and Lucas who were out there, the mother and father were working as frontline workers and it's Clapping for Mummy and Daddy, Our Heroes is the title, which I think says it all. Then again, you can see more rainbows on the pyjamas there. And then the next one, I think this is a very prestigious story. So this is Captain Tom Moore. So he completed 100 lengths of his garden before his 100th birthday to raise money for the NHS. And he started this off as quite a small thing, and then it just buildings and he ended up raising 33 million pounds for the NHS, which was incredible. But he, I think just became this hero for UK people. He was like a beacon of kind of hope, that this incredible man who had fought in the war who had medals, who was kind of a veteran, there was just such an outpouring of love for him. And then he was also given the honorary titled of Colonel, and he was awarded a Knighthood by the Queen, which was done in a special ceremony and in the grounds of Windsor Castle. Since then captain Tom Moore has passed away. And again, there was a great outpouring of sadness and grief, but also just this celebration of this amazing life. He'd been through so much. And then at his age of 99 to do that incredible thing and raise all of that money. So again, there were, all over the country people were creating portraits of officer Tom, but we have this lovely portrait of him doing his walk in our prize. So the next picture, I don't think the Mullets quintessentially Australian. I don't think this to be any more British picture. So during the lockdown period, it was the E-day. And so I think again, people saw this as an opportunity to have a bit of a celebration, even though people couldn't properly get together, they could go outside their houses. And again, it kind of captured a bit of that blitz spirit that we often talk about in the UK of stiff upper lip, kind of keep calm, carry on type feeling, which again is very British. And so all across the country, people had their bundling out. People were having cake and tea outside and talking to neighbours across the hedges. And this is Mick and Mavis who I just think are gorgeous. And the photographer said that they're really well known in their community. And he'd often seen them kind of sitting behind their hedge, watching the world go by and tending the garden. And the photographer said the hedge became the perfect metaphor for social distancing. And he said, they were very happy to have their portrait made on a warm English evening, celebrating the E-day. So I think this was a really lovely kind of-- And again, there were lots of photos of the E-day. That was another theme that came through in the entries. 'Cause I think it was just a lovely time for people to feel together when we were sort of apart physically. And then finally, another big thing that happened during the period of Hold Still. So Hold Still, the photographs between May and June in 2020 in a six week period, where the Black Lives Matter protests where people did come together and this photograph was a protest in London. And again, there were lots of images of this. And so we felt it was really important that it was represented in the final 100. What I think is very powerful about this image is that-- I mean, the photographer took the image of AKUAC. They didn't know each other, but actually since taking the image, they have become friends. But what the photographer said is if this pandemic has taught us anything, it must be that we all, all we really need is the wellbeing of our loved ones. Our human connection is the most important thing we have. I hope that we can keep this feeling going far beyond 2020. So I think, that says it all really. And I think this is an incredibly powerful image, but again, it's all about kind of that human connection. So yes, that's a little selection I think of some of the UK experience that came through.
- Thanks so much. That's a fantastic snapshot of each of the countries, unique experiences during this period. I know what we've got coming next, 'cause I've seen the images, but I'd really like the panel to start delving in a little bit to some of the similarities between, the commonalities between perhaps visual elements that you discovered whilst we were planning this programme. Some of them are quite entertaining. Some of them are very striking. So take it away and we'll see what we've got.
- Thanks Gill. And I don't know how our tip crew will feel about this. Sorry, Hector and Robert, but I'm wondering if we just have all four of us on unmuted and we just sort of pitching on an as needed 'cause I think we're taking turns. But Magda, I had to pop this one in, because a finalist in the Taylor Wessing this year is also a finalist in Living Memory and it's from the same series.
- Yeah. No, it was so lovely to see that. And obviously this idea of photographing behind glass, kind of for photographers. I mean, Lisa is again a professional photographer so for her to continue her work, there's something really beautiful about her concept of looking at families, looking at motherhood. And I think though that was a very, very prevalent and strong theme for probably both of us that photographers kind of making these portraits and finding really sometimes-- Again, yeah, sometimes inspirational, sometimes hopeful, sometimes lonely or sad kind of experiences through these kinds of portraits behind glass.
- And Lisa touched on a really interesting thing in this series as well, like particularly with mothers and it's that feeling of you're in isolation, but you're never alone if you're raising family and children or there's five people in a household flatmates, you're in ISO, but you're never also aligned or trapped in the same house together, which is a common theme as well.
- Yeah. And I feel like Lisa has really found a very beautiful painterly approach and her use of light and shadow is so stunning. And different photographers who made photographs Behind Glass did that in different ways. So I felt like Lisa's work has a very kind of important kind of artistic element to it as well. But also as you say, a very moving kind of exploration of connection and motherhood and the experience of lockdown.
- [Sandra] Yeah. Denise, what about garden shots?
- [Denise] Yeah. So if go to the next slide. So this I have to say, is really one of my favourites in Hold Still. It's called, We're Really Lucky to Have a Garden. And being a mum myself, you had to home school a child. When I saw this, it just resonated so strongly. Just the look on the mother's face of justice, the end of the day she's had enough, she's got a drink in her hand, the little boy is kind of relieving himself in the background. I just think kind of sums up what a lot of people's lives were like, that you were just getting through the day, chaos all around you, trying to kind of-- And it sort of sums up some of the difficulties of that, but also I think the joy of that. There's a real joy in this photograph. It's funny, it's amusing, but it's also kind of, although it was hard, everybody being stuck in the house together it also was a wonderful thing that people got to spend time with their family. And I think this really gets across that kind of mixed feeling about those experiences.
- [Sandra] Yeah. And it's interesting how the photographic technique can speak to that a little bit. I think the high saturation of colour really gives us that sense of, she's absolutely done, like she's had enough. But there's still fun to be had and it's still a very joyous backyard regardless of the maybe exhaustion I think.
- [Denise] Yeah, absolutely.
- [Sandra] The next photo I had to put in, maybe because it had a little bit of something to do with my own experience with our first lockdown. This is called, I've Been Meaning To. And it's all about going, while I'm stuck in my house, I'm gonna do some spring cleaning, I'm gonna get everything out and then I'm just gonna go through it. I might've had a go at doing with my wardrobe. And yeah, it's kind of like things have to get worse before they get better and have they gotten better. So there's something about this particular black and white portrait that I really like.
- [Tara] And it's that window Sandra into, like, we're seeing now more than ever, we're being invited into people in their environments, like colleagues are Zooming from home and you're meeting their children and their pets, or like seeing their washing, hanging in the background like I did the other day. So it's that opening up with stuff that's usually behind closed doors, which was a universal theme as well taking photographs of people in their environments and homes.
- [Sandra] Yeah. There were poignant moments as well.
- Yeah. So this-- I mean, just as the most incredibly moving photograph. So this was taken by the photographer, Hayley Evans of her grandparents pattern, Pat and Ronwood, who had been married for 71 years and they've both contracted COVID. And they were nursed separately, but then they brought them together so that they could spend their final days together. And Pat passed away in her sleep lying next to Ron and then he died five days later. So every time I talk about it so I get a bit different because I just think it's incredible. And what I think is so beautiful about it was when the photographer talked about it. She said they appreciated the tiny things and took nothing for granted. The ability to touch when they had so little left was a gift and the only way to show their love and devotion. I took this photo with gloved hands looking through a visor. It gives me so much comfort to know in a world where we have to distance ourselves from each other, that they had everything they wanted in the palm of their hands. I mean, I just don't want to say any more. I mean, it's such a powerful photograph and I think it just says it all. And what's been wonderful since is photograph has resonated so much. Some artists made a version of it and it was sold to raise money for the NHS. It's gonna be made into a stained glass window on the pier in Worthing where the family come from. And the photographer has spoken how the experience has helped her through her grief, sharing the experience. And I have to say that this is incredible, but there were a lot of images like this in Hold Still and it really brought home, I suppose, the real sadness and grief that the pandemic caused and kind of how people got through that. Again, through making these personal connections, even if you couldn't physically touch. She was able to be with them and it gave her comfort that hey could hold hands. So yeah, it's very powerful. I managed to get through that without crying. So.
- Yeah, but I mean, that's the thing, isn't it? Some of them really do like you have that sort of intimate sort of reaction to. And Tara this one, Her whole world now. This was an example, was it? I think this is Alex's mother's, isn't it?
- [Tara] Yeah, that's right. It's his mom, who's in her nineties. So just demonstrating, this is her whole world now that she's travelled the world and her world is reduced to her home and her plants and her veranda. So again, that shrinking of environment and gardens that's well. I guess as well, with the last one and all of them, really, it just touches on that generosity and the cathartic nature of telling these like highly personal stories and being heard and acknowledged can go a long way.
- [Denise] And then this one. Again, it's such a beautiful photograph. And I thought, we've talked-- In the images we just talked about, there was the kind of chaos of homeschooling. There was the real sadness and grief of people who were going through illness, but also for a lot of people, it was just being stuck at home and unable to do the things you normally would and having to watch the world go by and not being part of the world in the way that you could be. And so I think this very beautiful, still photograph kind of captures that experience, which was the experience for a lot of people that they just had to kind of stop and watch. And I think it encapsulates that so beautifully the look of lockdown, just that you're just looking and waiting.
- There's something about the drama of this word too, isn't it? With the use of the black and white medium, it's got a timelessness to it as well. I think we've got another few slides to go through. And I also think that we're probably desperately running out of time because there's so much we can talk about. But one thing that we did think that would be a lovely thing to do is we've done some pairings between Living Memory and particularly Hold Still. And so the next series of slides that we'll go through in a relatively quick, but still considered manner. On the left-hand side you'll see an image from Living Memory and on the right-hand side, you'll see an image from Hold Still. So if we go to the first one, there we go. And this was again, looking at those commonalities across people's experiences and seeing how photographers might've captured very similar sort of feelings. Anybody pitch in, because I think that I've been talking canteen myself.
- I mean, it's lovely to see the rainbow. So it was wonderful in Hold Still to see how people were kind of incorporated these symbols of hope into the images and they were in a very beautiful way with the light falling across this young child's face. But I think to the idea of like the effect of lockdown on children and was a very prevalent theme, not only whole homeschooling, but also this very kind of reflective, I guess, insight into how kids who suddenly had to find themselves inside would have understood what was going on. And I guess, as a kind of metaphor of young people experiences into the future, I think was quite beautiful.
- Yeah. And I think from memory Louise said in her artist's statement that Tiggy's a bit of a hand pool and doesn't necessarily like staying still very often. And so to capture this moment of Tiggy in their parents' arms and stopping to look right down the camera was a bit of a captured moment as well.
- [Magda] And it's the light before you know, sometimes that light to me, that the shining of the light, like it's a signaler of hope as well, to me, like yeah, that beautiful use of light shining on the faces.
- And you know young people are the future, so.
- [Sandra] So those next two slide images, I think that would have been another occurring thing for you as well I think, Denise. This was really the only way that our loved ones could not quite connect for so long. And in some cases it's still the only way.
- [Denise] Yeah. I think again, there was so many images through windows and images like this. And then what really struck me was how similar these images were on different continents, but exactly the same experience. And the photographer for the image from Hold Still on the right side said, separated by window, but connected by love, which I thought was so lovely. And I love the way that they, that what their stance physically reflects each other. You can see the family resemblance, they they're echoing each other. And even though they can't touch each other, you can just feel kind of the love and warms. And I think you can see that in both of those traits graphs. But yeah, it was just striking how similar they were.
- [Tara] And there's that beautiful overlay of the images as well with each other. So they're reflective of one's overshadowing, both of them, which was just lovely.
- [Sandra] Now this-- Okay, Zoom parties. Zoom parties have been a thing for nearly two years now and we've both got them. Tara, this is, Let them make cake by Zoom that Sarah Vandermark shot. It's got layers within layers and I'm not talking about the cake over.
- [Tara] I know how incredible does that cake look. But yeah, it's portraits within portraits and it's one of those interesting photos that the more you look at it, the more you see this portrait on the wall behind. There's the faces on the Zoom. And I think, the loving gaze, she says the loving gaze of cousins, Sophie looking at the cake through the computer. So yeah. And it makes me hungry. Look at that delicious cake. How torture is to have your birthday on Zoom and not be able to eat your own cake.
- [Sandra] And this is one of the things where you really wanna be able to get up and study it because the Zoom tiles on the right-hand side of the monitor has the artist, Sarah taking the shot within the shot kind of thing.
- [Tara] It's a bit mad.
- [Magda] Again, these two, I think it just struck me how similar they were in the composition and the warm bedtime stories with grammar. It's again, I think this is an experience that so many people had of having to find new ways to kind of communicate with family and that feeling of missing family. So this little four year old girl, her grandma would read her bedtime stories until she fell asleep. And I just think it's incredible really how resourceful everybody was in finding new ways to do things and new ways to make those connections.
- I think we may have run out of time unfortunately. Oh, look at me. Oh, fussy figures. Goodness. I have so enjoyed listening to all of our panel talking about these images. And so I can tell actually I've been following the chat conversation and the chat comments, and there's been less questions, but more actually people empathising, reminiscing, really engaging with these portraits. So clearly the three photographic portrait projects that we've been discussing tonight have resonated with a lot of people across the globe. So I really appreciate all of our panellists giving up their time today to talk to us and take us through all those incredible shots. Thank you so much. I know that Denise and Magda have young ones that they've had to get off to school. Sandra has a hungry cat, no doubt, ready to go to bed. So thank you to everybody who has joined us today. I'd really, really like to thank the British Council as well for all of their support. Without their support we probably couldn't have managed to get this together in the time that we have. So thank you so much to the British Council. And finally, thank you so much to the audience that's joined in, live on Zoom, live on Facebook. Thank you for supporting the arts. Thank you for coming along to listen to this conversation today. Despite everything that we've been through, it's been a really tough time, but we really appreciate you coming out in such numbers to listen to this conversation this evening. So thank you so much. Please continue to make art. Please continue to take photographs. Please continue to support your art institutions. Yes, and look after each other in this time. If anyone else would like to hear about some of the other programmes that we have going on, please jump on our websites. Both of the MPG, London and the MPG in Australia, portrait.gov.eu. We have so many things and offerings that we have, digital programmes that you can join into another conversations like this one this evening. Please follow us both on social media as well, if it's working, wasn't up. Because we were thinking that Facebook may not have actually happened this evening but thankfully we've managed to get out there live to everybody as we would normally. So thank you to everybody. Stay safe. Thank you for joining in. And hopefully we'll see you online again sometime soon. Thank you.
