How I am managing the Coronavirus. Week one of lockdown.

A fracture happened. Life like it used to be, going out to get your latte, going to work, seeing your friends, travel, doing anything you want but really not noticing all the freedoms you had. And now since waking up to the Coronavirus that's all gone. You can't see your friends, most of the shops are boarded up or they have shut down.  Before, you could buy anything you wanted in the supermarket at any time, now you have to queue while keeping to a two metre distance, only a certain amount of people are allowed in and out of the supermarket, only a few items are available. You can only go out for one walk per day and only for essential shopping. 

Overnight we went from you can do anything and everything you want, to you need to stay at home and do what you are told. If you don't do what you are told the police can fine you and arrest you. A policeman stopped my friend yesterday and asked him where he was going. He replied; I am going to the supermarket to buy some food... While in the street there were several criminals they didn't get stopped. I hope the British police is not turning into the Stasi, England is not turning into Eastern Germany in the 1960's.. Where your neighbour is no longer your friend, but is the person that is spying on you and telling the police how many times you have gone out. With the Coronavirus, hysteria seemed to have kicked in, first shown with massive panic buying and now with people spying on each other. 

How am I managing this massive change?

I just take at day at a time. I meditate regularly, I stick to a regime schedule, I find pulling weights   major stress releaser same with meditation. While the media seem to push their own agenda of complete lockdown, the mental consequences of this on people are not given much thought. If a Government puts in place a long term lockdown it should give clear guidance, rules, put support in place for example by having phone lines open to speak to councillors or someone on a regular basis. No such thing is in place at the moment, people will start experiencing cabin fever and get depressed.

Also there are a lot of people living in substandard accommodation in the Uk where they can't swing a cat around let alone self isolate, a prison cell as a room would be more comfortable.  I stick to a daily routine. 

But I am deeply concerned about abuse of power by the police. I am scared when I am inside the supermarket not to go to close to other people, to stay well clear of them. Going to the supermarket is no longer a pleasurable activity, I just want to get in and get out and go in as little as possible in fear of getting Coronavirus while in a closed space. 

The other person no longer a friend but someone you want to avoid. Some people have been friendly, others not so. Town is deserted, there is an eery silence both at night and in the morning, it is really unnerving, no planes flying. What I find worst is not seeing my friends that live on the other side of town. A stranger came up to me on my essential walk to the supermarket and said he was very depressed and lonely and scared.  I told him to stay strong and if he needs support to call the Samaritans. 

I feel at peace when I am meditating, I do get anxious on and off at times so I cut down my time on social media, I cut down also watching the news.  I think what worries me the most is not Coronavirus (frankly yes it is bad but 17000 people died of the flu alone in England between 2018 -2019) is abuse of power by the police and civil unrest and not be able to access food. 

I have seen several single men doing laps in their sports cars, maybe it's a way for them to destress. A family playing football in the park, such things that used to be normal that under lockdown now are no longer happening.  Also the Coronavirus is highlighting the inequality between people in England, people who are poor and in terrible accommodation sharing facilities with others (not family, strangers) are going to be hit the hardest. The wealthy & the middle classes in their mansions and houses with access to gardens will find it easier to self isolate or go outside less. 

I really hope they can test everybody and find who is immune so we can go back to work and carry the country forward. A country in lockdown is no way of living long term, cooped up at home watching too much tv and eating a lot, the only thing you will get from this is a heart attack.

I find sticking to a schedule really helpful: exercise, have a daily walk, chat to friends online, listening to music, reading, meditating. I just live in the moment. I have been more tuned into nature, animals, and tuned out from news media outlets generally. Enjoying the little things, like the fact that I have a tea and I can make myself a nice cappuccino at home. Or that I had a nice meal, listening to my friends voices on the phone.

I don't have space to paint and that's been challenging.

What I miss most is hugs, going to the gym, my friends at the gym and the trainers, I miss my friends loads. Having a nice coffee outside. I miss the library.  I would love an iPad so at least I could paint digitally but they are so expensive. Before the shops shut down I didn't manage to get a paper cutter, I still can't get one online. Online companies are not shipping non essentials.. People have different ways of coping some people have a lot of energy and they need more exercise.

I am practising social distancing, people have been overall friendly, but it is still strange every time someone comes along on the street. I move away or they move away. Some people are not friendly so I just ignore them. No time to waste with them. I enjoy people's company but I also enjoy sitting in silence in meditation, I don't feel I need to be connected all the time with others thorough video conferencing chats.

Time also has gone weird, I never know any more which day it is, is Monday or Thursday?

Something I have never done before is pulling weights in the middle of the night and practicing martial arts exercise. All the training I did with Tibetan & Chinese monks years ago is actually coming in handy now. I remember  being in the different temples with them, and I feel better, their faces, robes, rigour, peacefulness what I have learned from them gives me hope, it gives me strength.

This is after just one week of the lockdown..

Copyright Mirta Imperatori 2020

My sculptures made of discarded objects found in the river Thames.

I managed to move across London even when we were getting hit by storm Ciara to work on  an art project, I have plenty of determination. I was glad to get back all in one piece though. Central London was half deserted including the underground, which was lovely, while the homeless were sheltering inside the entrance of the tube station. I had to avoid several junkies while I was getting back, poverty has been hitting more people.

During my MA I worked with found objects & photography, recently objects found in the River Thames. I turn them into sculptures, giving them a new meaning and new lease of life.  I was amazed by the wide ranging selection of discarded objects from glass to plastic objects, to tennis balls to baby items, also highlighting the high levels of junk thrown into the river, thinking about what happens to waste, questioning our consumeristic society. How waste retains (especially plastic) or loses some of its structure and the impact of this on our environment, but also how it can be reused putting discarded products into new use. 

My Digital Artwork + I have been selected for the ArtBox Project in Barcelona.

It's all happening at the moment with Brexit and Coronavirus. Just a month ago I finished reading a book about a pandemic..  Instead of focusing on the chaos out there, I have been concentrating on making more artwork, doing positive things in my life that enrich it. My digital artwork has also been selected by ArtBox Project for an exhibition in Barcelona which is exciting, see pic below. 

I am also republishing my digital artwork from 2006-2007.  I find it rather amusing that after 13 years of my digital artwork being online,  now lots of people are interested in it and want to buy it and tell me that I was a pioneer in the field; particularly when considering that I was using what nowadays would be thought of as rather rudimentary equipment to make it.

Olafur Eliasson In real Life at Tate Modern.

I can't believe it's already December, I am looking forward to all the Christmas parties I have been invited to, something to look forward to. At the same time the election is just around the corner and frankly I and many others are sick and tired of it already; the politicians making promises to get votes and than switching as soon as they get in power and the uncertainty of Brexit, but I am not sure the election will bring any clarity, we might get a hang Parliament instead.  I went to my first Christmas party yesterday in  a swanky hotel and I received my first Christmas present, that cheered me up.

Before completing the photography project at Photofusion. I went to  to see the exhibition by Olafur Eliasson (Danish-Icelandic artist) at Tate Modern. The exhibition has 40 + of his works of art dating from the 1990's till nowadays, including installations, sculptures, photography, paintings. These included materials such as: reflective metals, colour gels, moss, water, light and air temperature.  The works I liked best are the installations where you have to use your senses to engage with the work. His installations bring nature, and the elements inside the gallery space, but at the same time he challenges your perspective and how you relate to the environment, by artificially changing things, for example in the room titled 'Beauty 1993'; here droplets of water come down from the ceiling, and depending on the angle you might see a rainbow; the floor was not hard but was made of soft material, also with the use of light, in a darkened room it played with your vision. I was unnerved by the soft floor as it was slightly affecting my balance,  in  a gentle way ( having vertigo obviously does not help), while walking around and at the same time watching the rain falling; but this was actually relaxing and peaceful. I really enjoyed this exhibit and it expanded my field of vision.

Beauty 1993 By Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori

Next to it was a work consisting of a mirror hanging from the ceiling and another convex glass mirror;  you looked into it and it distorted you and gave multiple images see pic. below.

Works by Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori

In the following room unfortunately the work called 'No nights in summer no days in winter 1994' see pic. below, was not functioning, which was disappointing. I think they should have given a discount because there was another work in another room that also was not working that day...

Work by Olafur Eliasson courtesy of olafureliasson.net

Your Blind Passenger by Olafur Eliasson photo courtesy of the Guardian

So I moved forward to 'Your Blind Passenger' above, where I had to wait in a queue before entering the room and I was warned that there would be thick fog and if I felt uncomfortable I should keep going and exit. The passage is 39 metres long and filled with fog, fully experiential and unsettling. The passage is one way only but I turned it int a two way as I stood inside the room and felt  I had totally lost my bearings,  and I didn't know how long or wide it was before entering it, I didn't walk through it like everybody else. There weren't many people, so I just stood inside of it for a while, absorbing the atmosphere. I enjoyed the peacefulness, the subdued colour, but I completely hated the fog, I felt I could not breathe and was losing my sense of direction; this was made worse by my vertigo. It was also the only room where I could not see anybody using their phones which was great. Than instead of going forward, I went back to the entrance, to the surprise of the attendant! I was just glad I did not bump into anybody.

Moss Wall by Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori

Thus I found myself back in the second room, where despite the moss on the wall I could not smell anything, called 'Moss Wall'. I was not sure if the moss on the wall was dried moss or preserved moss, it didn't really specify. The difference is that dried moss can be rehydrated and can come back to life while preserved moss is chemically treated and is no longer live.  I am making this point because it made me think of his other work 'Ice Watch'  which I thought was pretentious, where he brought ice blocks  to melt in front of the Tate. How about  as a joke we use all the ice in our freezers and drop it outside his house in Berlin just to make a point about climate change.

Ice Watch by Olafur Eliasson courtesy of olafureliasson.net

Than I found myself in the middle room which includes most of the photographs he took of the glaciers, his sculptures, watercolours all to do with glaciers. It felt cluttered, it didn't really flow with the rest of the experiential installations in the previous rooms which were really good. Where was the curating in this room? The display of the photographs, close together, all with the same coloured frames didn't make me want to look at them any further.

So I went back to  the room with  the 'Moss Wall 1994' and I saw lying on the floor the work 'Wavemachines 1995', four long squared tubes filled with a yellow liquid fitted with a mini motor that produces tiny waves.

Wavemachines 1995 by Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori

Than someone from my group told me I had missed the candle burning against a circular mirror?? Work called I 'Grew Up in Solitude and Silence 1991'.

Where was it? By than I had moved to 'The Spiral Room 2002' see pic. below, an 8 metre kaleidoscopic long tunnel that plays again with your perception and senses by the way it is constructed, and the reflecting metal distorts your image when you enter it. It's fun like the rest of his kaleidoscopic work. There was controversy with this work because it is accessed by steps with no wheelchair access!  I was also surprised that neither the Tate nor the artist thought to put a VR headset to make the work accessible to disabled people so they could at least experience it in that way.

The Spiral Room 2002 by Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori

Anyway when I entered the work someone behind me lost their footing while taking the endless 

selfies and she landed on the external wall and the whole work shook inside to the concern  of all of us and of the attendant outside!... I was glad to get out of there in one piece. 

The last room contained the work 'Your Uncertain Shadow', by then actually I was not sure anymore in which room I was as I felt so disorientated  and over stimulated by the previous works. In Your Uncertain Shadow  consists of five different colours of light streams projected onto the wall; the viewer steps in front of these beams to create shadows.

Your Uncertain Shadow by Olafur Eliasson photo by Mirta Imperatori

Following this is the expanded studio that gives an example of activities and the atmosphere of the artist's studio in Berlin. I was interested by the project 'Little Sun', a solar light planned by Eliasson for remote communities.

I would say overall the exhibition was an Instagram paradise, people all round me were taking loads of pictures of themselves inside the installations,  even to the point of being annoying. His strongest works are the experiential installations, the playfulness side of them, where he brings outdoor nature inside the gallery space; while I found his climate change work less effective. The juxtaposition of the artificial man-made installations that use energy, doesn't sit well with the climate change works to do with global heating.

My Latest Photography Project & Exhibition at Photofusion in London.

I was selected for a photography project at Photofusion Photography Centre/Gallery in London which was really exciting. First I had to show them my portfolio of photographs, and do an interview to be accepted, which I was. During the project I took urban photographs around the area with cameras I have never used before, both in black & white and in colour, all under time constraint.  The first day of shooting was freezing cold; I was not dressed appropriately and the trains were delayed so I was nervous. I had the commuting problem all during my BA, my MA and now on this project. Basically being the only person commuting from far away, with trains constantly delayed,  and dealing with the bad weather, floods and all, but I did it. I remember my course directors at uni and other students telling me that they were really impressed with my determination to complete the course and do well, despite the long distance commuting.  Anyway I was really happy to be selected for this photography project that culminated in an exhibition.  I spent some time developing black & white photographs in the darkroom & doing some camera-less photography.

Below are a selection of the photos I took on the project.

For part of the project we had to select items that we carry with us that say something about ourselves,  see below a sample of my camera-less photography.

 Below are three of my camera-less photographs that were selected for the exhibition.

Brexit reflections.

I have completed my Masters in Fine Art in the autumn of 2018. I have been asked: How does it feel to have finished? And I say: Great, a sense of achievement and relief as I don't have deadlines any longer and now I can write whatever I want on my blog (so I might be reviewing more films); but uncertainty due to Brexit has continued throughout the two years in which I have completed my Masters.

Many people don't know where to position themselves, both British and Europeans alike.

Three British friends of mine who used to live here, have moved to Europe: in order to be able to get a  European passport. Others living here don't know what to do, these are Remainers, they are deeply unhappy about leaving the EU, they feel European so they have been discussing whether to move abroad in case of a no deal Brexit. The Leavers are unhappy as well, as nothing is happening fast enough for them, and they feel betrayed by their own government; they want to pull the plug and regain sovereignty. Both Leavers and Remainers are unhappy with how things are going, for completely different reasons, some don't speak to each other any longer.

Some of my European friends here managed to get British citizenship as they have been worried about being sent back. Everybody is trying to protect themselves the best they can in different ways, in different circumstances. Some people don't know where they belong anymore.

During the Christmas period, on top of buying presents I was also stocking up on long term food incase of a no deal after it was discovered that the Government had paid millions to a ferry company that didn't have any ships.  Just today Parliament voted down extra money for the Government to prepare for exit with no deal…Things change daily in the news but not in people's lives.

All of this mess started with the financial crisis in 2008 and consequently years of austerity, job instability, lack of jobs and cuts to essential services in most areas (transport, police, education, libraries) that has affected a lot of people, pushing some people further into poverty, desperation and homelessness.  The economy is run by London but many areas outside of London don't see the benefit of it, hence Brexit.

There has been an increase in violent crimes, most recently a random murder at a train station. On top of this the migration crisis caused by wars and poverty abroad and the poor response to this  internationally combined with terrorist attacks, it is really a toxic cocktail.

People  have been killing themselves a lot lately here in England, it's become a regular thing hearing someone jumped in front of a train or from a building, it's happening so often that a minister for suicide has been appointed, I think we are the only country to have one…

Not long ago I saw a young woman who was trying to jump from the top of a building, she was standing right at the end of the building, a lot of people were taking photographs of her which I thought was appalling. The police were very efficient and moved us all backwards and cordoned off the whole area, I think they didn't want anybody witnessing her death close up. A friend of a friend of mine is receiving counselling after someone jumped in front of her while she was shopping inside a shopping centre in London, landing at her feet not on top of her. Now she is scared to go inside shopping centres or indeed outside of the house. We are not going through normal times.

I have noticed people getting angry over nothing in the street, shouting at each other or getting into arguments on public transport like never before. In some areas the transport has been atrocious lately with trains constantly majorly delayed, worst than ever I can remember, isolating people with no cars in their own areas  by drastically cutting the amount of transport available per day. In my friend's area they only get three buses per day and no trains?!

I have been meditating regularly recently for longer periods of time, with liberating and calming effect  and I have been busy drawing and painting. Keeping positive, exercising going about my life as best as I can but I still feel a sense of uneasiness, it comes and goes, I am just aware of it but I don't indulge in it. My friends say they feel the same at times.

So the Christmas holidays were a really good break from all of the above, I was invited to several Christmas lunches, dinners and events, it was great to be able to catch up with friends during the holiday period and have some fun. The end of the holidays and we are back to Brexit and what is going to happen next? An exhausting process but will Parliament actually agree to anything???

Words come under copyright Mirta Imperatori 2019.
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My Climate Change Installation.

I have been working intensely on my Climate Change installation. Below are some photographs from the exhibition; there are two rooms, each with a combination of photographs and objects. One has to experience it, it is not only visual but an experiential installation with a narrative.. To be explored!