A Very Covid Art World / Update

Since the implemented lockdown and Covid-19 measures haven't been great, everyone has been trying to adjust and settle into this new unprecedented situation. Most students, especially creatives, had to abandon work and many have fled back home to their families. Degree shows have been cancelled and university work is moving to an online format. Health scares and worries about family and friends are continuous as figures and facts are thrown around on a day to day basis by the news outlets. An absolutely devastating time. However, a lot of people are using this situation to do things they normally wouldn't or have been meaning to do, I myself have finished my website and am FINALLY uploading to an art instagram which I probably would have NEVER ended up doing if I didn't do it during uni time. As well as that, people are creating new and exciting work- something I am STRUGGLING to do, and exercising also something I am struggling even more to do. I'm trying not to beat myself up about it but I just want to get the necessary work done for uni as I had my heart so set on what I was working on for the degree show. BUT one last good thing I want to add - the world is actually healing. All the pressure from extinction rebellion and how close they were to losing the fight against deadly rising temperature levels has been eased for just a moment, letting everything slowly heal! Let's hope people realise, and doesn't send the world back to the way it was following the end of lockdown.

In these times I have been pondering on what the art world will really be like in society once we are all introduced back to work and other institutions. I predict that there will be in influx of Covid, lockdown, and quarantine related art. Other creatives, such as musicians, that work in a non-physical format are a bit more readily accessible with streaming, which has already seen a vast rise. I have seen sooo many my friends release incredible work and there is more on the way. I think artists who make work that should be experienced or seen in a gallery space will hold off from showing the world, continually learning and changing the work as the lockdown changes and we keep re-settling. I think it will however be very difficult to get a job in the art sector, things like communal studios and art galleries won't reopen, a lot of retail/commercially sold art places may lose their shop fronts.

So, we might not be able to see art in the flesh for a really long time and when galleries do open they will be playing catch up with all the shows they had organised prior. There will also be a very sceptical weariness about life, everyone being more aware of health and social distancing, a lot of artists may choose to not do shows. Even to the finest detail of videos that require headphones and how germs can spread through art that is semi-interactive. One thing, I have been researching a lot is art prizes, such as the WOON Sculpture and Painting Prize 2020. Art prizes are definitely something that creatives will be researching on the internet whilst at home and there may be a vast increase of applicants. I think this stems from uncertainty for students who may be leaving uni and could get the chance of winning such a fabulous opportunity to show work, make work, work with artists etc as their first step into the big wide world. If only I could stop looking at my phone and getting distracted from sending my bloody application!!!! So yes, a very weird and very Covid related art world we are probably going to step into.