POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Digital photograph 'St Sophia and Her Three Daughters Greek Orthodox Church, Bourke St, Surry Hills, 14 June 2020' by Katherine Lu

Object No. 2020/90/13

In mid-February 2020 the Australian Government informed Australians the coronavirus outbreak would become a pandemic and announced a health emergency response plan to COVID-19. On March 11 the World Health Organisation officially declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic. In New South Wales highly restrictive stage 3 lockdown measures came into effect on March 30, which severely limited people’s movements and gatherings, including children’s schooling, retail, transport and religious and social activities. As restrictions began to lift in incremental stages beginning in May, Sydney-based photographer Katherine Lu was invited by the Museum to visually document experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic on everyday life in Sydney. Her series specifically captures objects and visual communication in the built environment as related to COVID-19. Her brief was to document the urban experience with architecture functioning as the context and platform in relation to social distancing and the related design methods for communicating these new realities. The photographs capture design elements that reflect both official and community responses. Some of the things the pandemic has made people acutely aware of are aspects of everyday life we take for granted in the city, ie the convenience of shopping and socialising in different settings, the expectation of uninterrupted supply chains, safe commuting and the right to attend places of religious worship. Katherine’s photographs capture a diversity of experiences from Sydney’s central business district and Chinatown; to the inner-city areas of Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Chippendale and Paddington; the inner-west neighbourhoods of Marrickville and Newton; and Parramatta in Western Sydney. Her photographs from the Newtown ‘Blessing Box’, a shared street-side pantry providing free food and essentials initially to refugees and then spreading more widely to others in financial need to a make-shift plastic-door handle cover in Chinatown, Katherine’s photographs beautifully capture creativity, invention and resourcefulness in a time of urgency and great uncertainty and anxiety. This simple printed sign stuck on with duct tape informs parishioners that attendance in the church is limited to 50 people, once the complete ban for gatherings was lifted on 1 June 2020. Religious services along with funeral and wedding gatherings have been considered by health authorities to be high risk activities. Following the change in attendance numbers, further regulations and recommendations related to singing, sharing prayer and hymn books and collection plates for example have tried to be enforced. Katie Dyer, Senior Curator Contemporary