This week marks the fifth anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic. While COVID is not what it used to be, thanks to vaccines and booster shots, COVID is not to be forgotten.

And so, in this post, let’s take a walk down the coronavirus memory lane, and revisit the pandemic through some of the creative work that it has inspired.

“When Time Stood Still” shows a sundial on a deserted waterfront:

Sometimes it felt as if we were living:

“Under the COVID Dome”

Everything shut down or went virtual. Small businesses shut down. Restaurants closed.

We stayed inside, while scientists were trying to find a vaccine. We exercised indoors.

We lost jobs, projects, and contracts. We taught (and learned) remotely.

We scrubbed everything we touched, and ourselves.

We baked bread. There was a shortage of toilet paper! Wine, on the other hand, became a necessity…oftentimes.

Some of us wore masks to shield ourselves against the virus, and stood six feet apart waiting patiently to be allowed inside grocery stores. That, while mask-less joggers squeezed their way slaloming in between us, brushing their sweaty shoulders against our clothes, without ever saying ‘sorry’ or ‘excuse me’ or ‘thank you.’

Since, more than ever, many individuals needed art (as therapy) to keep their minds and souls alive, creatives were asked, once again, to donate their work. (For the greater good?)

A new state of mind descended over many people’s lives, over many creatives’ lives.

But creatives were also living and creating in isolation. Tags like #photographersinisolation #writersinisolation #artistsinisolation started to become popular online.

Since many people were scrubbing and disinfecting their hands more than ever, more attention was given to hands, in general, and also from a creative perspective–hand gesture and how we talk with our hands.

As time went by, parallels between COVID and HIV and AIDS started to be drawn–not so much from a medical or scientific, perspective, but rather while looking at the government’s reaction to (the beginning of) each of these two pandemics.

The 7 pm hour became famous, with cheers celebrating the first responders, the healthcare providers. They were putting their own lives in danger, trying to save lives, while refrigerator trucks filled with the bodies of those who’d lost their lives to COVID were still parked outside hospitals.

Pride festivities became remote events, with rainbow lights illuminating cities.

Fourth of July fireworks happened remotely, too, shot from the top of the Empire State and other buildings.

City streets were deserted, as was the NYC subway. (authorities used the opportunity to give it a good (and much needed) scrub)

When the first vaccines came along, there was a brief cheer, in certain parts of the country, followed by harassing of the very medical personnel who’d been cheered on until then.

Comfort, the gigantic hospital ship, made it to NYC. To this day, it’s still not sure if it was fully used, or not, or why not.

I’ve recently watched the movie Contagion, again, and found many parallels to the coronavirus pandemic that happened more than a decade later. Seen through the lens of COVID or rather from the other side of COVID, the Contagion story has a chilling effect. Check it out, if you have a chance.

So, what now?

Nowadays, COVID is, in many ways and many places, a shadow of what it used to be five years ago. Yet, after several COVID vaccines and many more booster shots, it seems that people are even more divided along so many lines–COVID, vaccines, science, healthcare, as well as equal and human rights, the environment and climate change, politics, and so on….

What will happen when the next pandemic will come?

Until then, here’s a reminder of people, united, during the darkest days of COVID:

Stay safe and healthy out there.

As always, thank you for stopping by,

Alina Oswald

Here are a few additional links you might want to check out:

Stories of COVID podcast: The Hope of Comfort

The Symbolism of the 7 pm Cheer: It’s 7 pm Somewhere

Revisiting the Role of Hand Gesture and Body Language in Visual Storytelling

Portraits Through Time: A feature article interview with award-winning, legally blind photographer and long-term AIDS survivor and activist, Kurt Weston, on surviving two pandemics published in Out IN Jersey Magazine

Turning Points: A cover story Pride month interview and photo shoot with artist, activist and author Avram Finkelstein, published in Out IN Jersey Magazine

Additional COVID-related posts can be found here.