APPLAUSE Artist Angelica Mesiti, who spent the lockdown in her home studio in Paris, reflects on connection in isolation

Applause

Australian artist Angelica Mesiti spent the COVID-19 lockdown in her home studio in Paris. Here, she reflects on connection in isolation.

Applause is not an action that is at its best in the singular. It’s much better in a group when it relies on consensus. Then it is an affirmation and a reply. It says: ‘YES!! Thank you! And well done!’ to whoever its message is for. It also says: ‘I agree with you and let’s assertively agree that this thing is good’. It says: ‘I’m going to join you and give sound to my agreement, and when my sound joins with your sound we will be making it larger and louder and stronger’.

When more people join in making this sound a new effect begins, we become a collective in agreement and our sound swells then returns energy back to us. Because the energy is producing vibrations that are now waving their way between us and entering our diaphragms, raising the hairs on our arms and bouncing off the walls of the buildings, this thing that is swelling takes on shape and form and becomes an entity and it has power and force.

Every night at 8pm since the beginning of confinement (34 days at the time of writing) this is what happens on our street. You will have heard of the ritual that came into being seemingly spontaneously across Europe - where residents applaud the healthcare workers and other frontline essential service people from their apartment windows in a show of solidarity, gratitude and encouragement. But I would have never anticipated the effect of this nightly act.

In the first few days of confinement, when everything was full of uncertainty, anxiety and fear, this 8pm ritual of applause was a moment of unexpected relief. At the end of a day of isolation, to open the windows and see neighbours - who we’d never seen before - wave at us and each other, and smile and share a collective moment, was like medicine. We didn’t speak; we relied on gesture and signals to affirm to each other we were still there, connected in our shared isolation and knowing that gave us relief.

It is a small act and it only lasts a few minutes each day, but it reinforces something essential that we didn’t know we needed. It gives us a way to give sound and action to our existence, to our physical self and our connectedness to each other. Even while we are closed away, staying home, staying safe.

Angelica Mesiti, ASSEMBLY 2019, three-channel video installation. Stills and installation views. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 2019