Portraits of a Pandemic

by Anjella Roessler

As an artist I work combining the genres of photography and history, exploring ways of presenting research to create an emotional recognition and response to historical events.

I am currently working on a project around the Covid-19 pandemic, researching on and tying it in with the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919 as it affected Australia. Very little has been written on the Australian experience of the 1919 wave, but what is found in archives is very similar to that which we are experiencing currently, in both government response or lack of, as well as public perceptions and understandings. My intention, eventually, is to research and present these comparisons extensively, and to seek to understand and give a human face to these times of trauma.

The photographic part of this is portraits of presentday people in their masks. I ask my sitters to bring their favourite mask to the session. To create an experience of being out of time, I use a camera similar to that which was in use in photographic studios in 1919. This large, cumbersome camera creates images that are 8”x10” in size. The lens is from the early 1900s and would have been in use at the time of the early pandemic. This old glass also adds to the way my images look, without the sharp, clinical results of more modern lenses. Rather than film, I use darkroom paper to replicate the early photographic processes. Exposures are quite long, my sitters are required to hold their pose without blinking or moving for sometimes several seconds. Using this technique, the portraits contain life. Any small breath records, and the images have a beautiful softness and pictorial element. This creates an appearance of an old, found image, yet with the jarring addition of the sitters’ modern masks. The images once shot are developed in the darkroom, in trays under a red light, as they would have been at the time. The entire process is very hands on. Most of my practice involves tangibility and time. Nothing is fast in creating these. The resulting images are always a serendipitous surprise. Some images are heavy with texture, others are quite clean and bright. Light affects the paper in differing ways, colours and tones do not always register as they would with normal black and white. Blues register as white, reds as black for example. I love the element of surprise and unknowingness. The sessions are all very covid-safe and social-distancing aware. For some time, I could only photograph using family, but now that rules are a little more relaxed, I am able to include other people. They are all done outside,

Lynne

with a canvas set up behind the sitter and using the sun as my light source. The subject is 1.5m away from me, with the camera between us, echoing and acting as a reminder of the current social distancing rules. Eventually, I hope to see the finished project as an exhibition (one day when galleries are open again!). My aim is to have as many portraits as possible, and to have them blown up very large and hung all over the space. To me, they speak of our connection and responsibility to one another, as well as the echoes to the past and our resilience in times of trauma. The masks draw attention to the eyes, wherein you can see each person’s response to the pandemic. Stress, exhaustion, strength of will, hope - all are present and clear to be read.

Tracey Rebecca