Covid 19 Portrait Project

28/12/2020

Several of the Portraits I did during lockdown are currently being exhibited in the Foyer of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery. It is such a huge honour for me to share these portraits and stories in such an amazing space.

They will be up over summer, so if you are in Wellington, go and have a look and also take time to appreciate and wonder at the shows they have on at the moment; Portraiture of Power and the awe-inspiring work of Star Gossage.

A massive thank you to Victoria Daniel for enabling this to happen, and also the NZ Portrait Gallery for continuing to share these stories.

13/07/2020

Honoured to have my project included in this article on The Big Idea

So many grassroot NZ creatives went the extra mile when the nation was in need of a morale boost during the pandemic's darkest days - it's time to celebrate them.

04/06/2020

My final portrait is of this beautiful woman.

“My name is Zember. I work as an interpreter or pharmacy assistant at Victory Square Pharmacy. I normally work only part-time but during lockdown I worked full time as we were really busy. A bit stressful as I have two kids and study to do too. However, now it seems like it is a bit calmer and I need to focus on my study.”

Thank you Zember for working full time during lockdown, and doing it while looking after your family and studying.

Zember and her family were also photographed for an exhibition organised by The Sukita Project in Nelson. It is a beautiful exhibition that was organised after the tragic events in Christchurch last year and if you are local it is worth checking out at the Nelson Library. The exhibition celebrates the diversity of cultures within the Nelson community. You can read more about Zember’s hard work and talents as an interpreter on their wonderful page.

Drawing from photo by Virgina Woolf.

25/05/2020

James Tuckett,
Hospital Doctor - Specialist Anaesthetist

“Life changed progressively during the pandemic. Both in my professional and home life.

The first to change was with my work in the hospitals. The staff in the public hospital went through a very stressful period in the weeks either side of the Level 4 lockdown announcement. The private hospital had to stop working altogether.

There was a huge sense of relief amongst my colleagues when the government announced Level 4, and we entered an intensive period of pandemic training so that we could manage the expected surge of patients requiring intensive care and ventilation.

Everyone was concerned about how to protect themselves amidst the challenge of caring for these people, so stress levels were high. Fortunately the public health measures worked and our Intubation Team only needed to manage one critically ill patient. Due to the fate of rostering, I had to lead the small team of 4 in the small hours of a Friday morning to care for that patient. Everything went well. The PPE and the new systems worked, and we were able to safely manage the patient and keep our staff safe. I have a huge sense of pride in the nurses, anaesthetic technicians and doctors that achieved this. They all have young families, and were going into a very stressful situation that none of us had ever encountered before. Thanks to their professional actions the patient not only survived, but defied all predictions and recovered to return home to their family. I will never forget those involved.

Because of the exposure to this positive patient, my Home Bubble reduced from two members to one. This was the hardest period of lockdown for my wife Melissa and I. The timing was impeccable. Melissa was in the early stages of a challenging pregnancy, making it look easy but we knew it wasn’t. We managed it for 9 days then reunited to maintain our mutual mental health.

After this, Lockdown hasn’t seemed so bad. We are grateful for our situation and for the actions of New Zealanders that prevented the situation from being far worse.

Our families and friends are well, my work is still busy, and Melissa is learning how to teach art to students from home.

Our beloved dog, P**i, and cat, Bella have developed attachment disorders that will take a lifetime to resolve. Not that we want them to.

And who knows?…Hopefully soon they will have a new little friend competing for their attention…”

Thank you James, to both you and your colleagues for all that you do to keep our community healthy.

20/05/2020

Dr Monica Liva, GP

“At work we are doing more than 50% of consultations virtually (by phone/video call) & the rest face to face consultations. Prior to the lockdown 100% of my consultations were face to face. During alert level 4&3 I also worked a couple of days at the COVID19 CBAC testing sites. I have to go through a decontamination process after work before seeing my kids.

Life at home has been a little more hectic with all 4 kids staying home. It has been pretty challenging trying to homeschool my primary school aged kids while working. I don’t know how others are doing it but kudos to them!

The lockdown period has been a great time to reset and prioritise what is important and what isn’t in life. I’ve enjoyed not having the pressure to fill up time with wasteful activities. We get so caught with being busy that we miss the opportunity to just kick back and relax with family.

Working in the frontline especially at the Covid19 testing sites has been super helpful with keeping up to date with the constant changes from the MOH, witnessing the results & patterns of transmission unfold in the community.”

Thank you Monica, for keeping your community healthy whilst juggling both work and family life!

14/05/2020

Candy
Cleaner

“Work is definitely more full on! I'm trying to stay positive. I do miss doing certain things, especially going to the cinema (miss you).

I always try to do the best I can even before this. I enjoy what I do (yes I really do enjoy cleaning, ha) and hope that I'm making a difference in keeping people safe and well...

Shout Out to all the other hard working cleaners at this time!”

Thanks Candy for doing the best you can at your job.

13/05/2020

This started as a way to say thank you to all those doing hard work to keep their communities safe and well during lockdown, as well as a way to help me process what was happening in the world. I definitely did not expect so much interest and this has been a humbling experience. It has been so lovely to see the many comments from people cheering on those that they knew in the portraits. So thank you to those that have been willing to trust and allow me to draw and share your stories, as well as those who have followed along. It has been an honour.
​
I know that there are many more people that deserve recognition. There are essential services that I have not had the opportunity to represent, such as delivery people, freight, people working in food banks, policemen, fire service, custom officers, scientists and many more. I also believe recognition is due to those who are not classed as 'essential', who've been working at home whilst schooling their children, solo parents, those who have lost loved ones during this time, or lost their jobs, and many who are doing it hard. This has been a crazy time and I know that people are doing the best they can. Kia kaha!

But with limited time and resources I have to return to other things. As New Zealand moves into Level 2 I will no longer be taking any new nominees for now, but you will still see a few more faces in the next couple of weeks as I finish off drawing the list of people I have pinned above my desk.

Thank you all so very much,
​
Lily

12/05/2020

International Nurses Day!

Thank you to these wonderful women who participated in the Covid19 Portrait Project, it has been an honour to draw you and share your stories.

Thank you to all the Nurses working hard around the world today. You make the world a better place.

12/05/2020

For International Nurses Day, I am featuring another NZ Nurse working in Rural Australia.

Talitha Claassens
Registered Nurse - Special Care

“I currently work in a rural remote hospital in South Australia. Our special care unit can get all kinds of patients from post-operative, septic, cardiac, mental health, seizures etc. We sometimes have to stabilise HDU and ICU patients for transfer to Adelaide. We do not have a dedicated ICU unit but due to Covid-19 we have set up an ICU room in case we are unable to transfer patients to Adelaide. Our two bedrooms have been transformed into single bed rooms, which have placed a lot of pressure on staff to transfer and discharge patients, leading to a high level of patients turn over. Covid-19 means we will continue to use full PPE for all resus situations, even after Covid-19 has passed. There are many other things we will continue to do that Covid-19 has permanently changed in our clinical environment. This has given us an opportunity to ensure our protocols and procedures are up to date and our processes are robust.

We have turned our labour wards into Covid-19 Emergency rooms. We are extra vigilant with assessing patients histories and travel behaviour and each person entering the hospital is temperature checked, even staff. We are also now treating patients either in their vehicles or in separate rooms and from a distance. For a caring touching profession it is bizarre to maintain social distances and be extra cautious in touching patients. Some of our patients are so lonely their only physical touch happens when they come to hospital, but now that touch is protected by PPE.

For a period of time, I was social-distancing myself from my partner and his family to protect them from Covid-19. I am always cautious about potentially bringing Covid-19 home or exposing someone to it due to my exposure in my profession. It has made me feel quite lonely and alone. I am so glad we have done so well social distancing so I can reach out to other people again.”

Thank you Talitha!

08/05/2020

Debbie
Cleaner

“I usually start work @5.30am until 4pm daily.
I now am loving the sleep in, work starts @ 8am.
My hours have dropped with most public toilets being in lockdown.
It’s been an eye opener that none of us, New Zealanders, expected.

Normally I would be quite tired, returning home, now I'm able to get my garden looking lovely. Spend quality time with my dogs. And do some clearing out of rubbish.”

Thank you Debbie for all you do both in and out of lockdown.

05/05/2020

These wonderful people have been keeping their community singing and sane during lockdown!

“Voice Collective is an intergenerational pop up based singing group in Nelson led by Tanya Nock and Ryan Beehre. They are both Teachers at Nelson Centre of Musical Arts. The group started 18 months ago as a monthly gathering but over time it increased to lunch time sessions and a NCMA pop up choir on wellness Tuesdays.

Within 24 hours of going into level 4, Tanya had messages from the VC community saying “Please can we find a way to keep this going”. Ryan and Tanya (not being in the same bubble) had to work out a way to continue. Ryan is also a full time counselling student at NMIT and appreciates the importance of singing with mental health.

It didn’t take long for them to come up with a plan involving Ryan pre recording a backing track and then videoing himself playing the guitar which caused quite a lot of amusement to the 2000 viewers that logged on for the first live stream “I can’t feel my face” by the Weeknd. Even though Tanya had been teaching for almost 30 years, the thought of singing alone to such a big audience was terrifying. Luckily her 13 year old daughter Asha came to the rescue by supporting her with her sweet vocal sounds. It soon became a family affair when her 19 year old son returned from Otago and joined in on the piano followed by Grandma on percussion and partner Vinny as the Irish potato farmer during the “Soup slippers and Sparkles” live stream.

The initial plan was for the Nelson community but after the second live stream “Praise essential service workers” Fat boy slim, they realized they had reached out Nationally and Internationally through their friends and families.

It has been wonderful to see the community come together by joining the sessions live, then sending videos and photos for heart warming collages presented afterwards. They asked for donations for two of the sessions and then donated 50% to The Women’s Refuge and Project Butterfly.

They have 2 projects as part of the NCC Heritage 2020 online festival. One of them involves a virtual pub crawl and dance around Nelson. Voice Collective has also been funded for 6 more sessions by MSD.”

Thanks Tanya and Ryan, for continuing to provide singing sessions and lifting spirits during lockdown!

Drawing of Tanya is based on photo taken by John Paul Pochin.

02/05/2020

Kim, Registered Nurse

“Patients admitted could not see their loved ones and we were the only hands to hold or ears to listen. As a nurse, caring and advocating is essential and I ensured my patients felt safe and comfortable through this worrying time. I arrived to work in m***i clothes and changed at work and at the end of my shift I changed out of my uniform. Many nurses did this to keep their patients, themselves and the ones they love at home safe from the virus.

At home I have been schooling my children as they continue with distant learning.”

Thank you Kim!