Jess Liaudin, Actor, Stuntman and former MMA Fighter: “I bought a few dumbbells so I could train at home, because if not, I would have gone mental, if I wasn’t able to train. Because of that I was still living a pretty balanced life. I moved to East London just before the lockdown. It’s a very mixed area. You have Muslim people, black people, white people, young people, old people – all living in harmony. I live with things, I just adapt. I struggled when I was a child, we were very poor. I was homeless when I was 14. I travelled the world with just a back-bag, with no money. Doing all kinds of jobs, in countries where I couldn’t speak the language.”

Marianna and Stella Criscuolo, Freelancer and her daughter: “It reminded me a bit about my childhood, when you made the best of getting on your bike and going to the park; a simpler way of life. This has taught us that a slower pace of life is OK.”

Sofian Ferrad, 5-a-side Football Player: “Enjoy your life. We only have one life. When we die, no more. We belong to God. I’m keeping fit. I’m playing football by myself. I’m riding my bike and hopefully soon we can play football again.”

Teresa Rocha, Key Worker: “It might sound selfish, but I really enjoyed the peace and quiet of the empty streets. Just the mood itself, for a change. After the first couple of weeks you could tell how blue the sky was. I found that people in general are more friendly and more relaxed and much more appreciative.”

Mariana and Clara Winckler, Dentist and he daughter: “People have been discussing new ways of delivering education, working remotely, housing conditions, the kind of relationships we have, and how we can keep these relationships up even in a virtual world. I hope all the social inequalities that most developing countries have faced throughout their histories can be better understood by the government and international authorities. Being able to stay at home looking after my family, I don't face food uncertainty, and have a roof over my head can be considered more than 'positive experiences'. It has put the concept of being privileged on another level.”

Melissa Fung, Television Journalist and Author: “The first two months of the lockdown were ok; I was doing post-production on my Thailand story about people sending their elderly family members to care homes in the UK. There was a sign next door asking if anybody wanted to cook meals for the needy and sheltering. I started cooking 50-60 meals a week. It was nice to help out. The nicest thing that has come out of this, is making new friends. Getting to know your neighbours.”

Lily Edwards, Singer/Songwriter: “Me and my siter were fighting a lot towards the end of 2019, and we have gotten a lot closer over this period, which is really nice. I think the good side of it that people might not feel cocky anymore about the environment.”

Reginald Arkhurst, Barrister (Specialising in Immigration and Human Rights): “Sitting in the house all day is a bit boring, I have a lot of books to read though. We have a very nice community here, it’s a very nice place to be. I’m lucky. My mother-in-law lives next door, and my brother-in-law lives a couple of doors down. He does all the shopping for us. I’m very lucky in that regard. One lesson is the value of people. All the people that some people look down on should be elevated and show the added value they bring.”

Eleni Kiomourtzi, Businesswoman: "My philosophy of life is you have two ways: are you going to sit down and keep crying about what you have lost, or are you going to pull your sleeves up and do what you do best and work to bring back everything you have lost? It was the biggest holiday ever. I have never had so much time off work. So much time to think, to put things right; to read, to do things I didn’t have the time to do before. For the very first time I got to meet my neighbours. One of our neighbours set up a WhatsApp group for the whole street, to help all those who needed help with anything, from shopping to garden waste. There was help for everything and they even raised money for charities.”

Anthony Barclay, Actor: “I got to spend time with family, some serious quality time. I got to spend time with my little 6-year-old. I’m her supply teacher. That is a great honour to spend time, one-on-one for hours each day. We are incredibly privileged that we are still healthy, that we have somewhere to live, a roof over our heads and we have enough money to survive. I speak to my mum, my brother and my sister more. I’m interacting with them more than I would normally do. More people, I suspect, are doing more work from home, than when they were at work.”

Dr. Rafik Bedair, Consultant Intensivist at St George’s Hospital: "People understand these are exceptional circumstances. The sense of teamwork and coming together was fantastic. There was no such thing as ‘no we can’t do it. The focus it provided was fantastic. People just wanted to do the right thing.”

Shawn Stephen Vessaokar, Founder of Stephan PR: "For Shawn as an individual I believe, “the secret of being happy is to accept where you are in life and making the most out of every day” Accepting what was going on around and within me mentally and emotionally and believing that as a global community, we will triumph at the end gave me hope! I run a boutique PR agency; STEPHEN PR that supports international brands elevate their presence in the Arab world. It was conceived and launched in 2017 and in 2 years COVID hit us, we had to adapt, strategize, and align various factors within the organisation to keep it sustainable and afloat. Reminding myself of the above ‘Shawnology” in the firstweek of April 2020 when Dubai where I live went under lockdown, supported my human spirit that encouraged me to thrive.” “Understanding and accepting the fact that I have to slow down, step back, reflect and introspect and living in gratitude was one of the key positives that I experienced during the initial days of the pandemic. I am not a TV person and exploring Netflix and Amazon Prime was exciting. My parents live with me and watching around 200 movies and around 15 series during the Pandemic with them helped us bond on another level and those moments will always be a ripple in the ocean of my memories. Playing scrabble with my parents regularly helped me stimulate my brain and learn a plethora of new words that further enriched my vocabulary. We live in fast paced world, and everybody is on the run. The Pandemic helped each one of us take time to pick the phone and connect with our friends, family and loved ones from across the globe and check on them and connect on a humane level.As an entrepreneur talking to my team-mates and understand what they were going thru mentally also helped me getting a better perspective of life and the challenges life throws on you.” “The Pandemic has completely changed our lives. Take something as fundamental as our experiences of space: our mobility has become severely restricted –reduced to jogs or walks a few kilometres around our homes. Perhaps less obviously, the lockdown has also affected our experiences of time.As an individual who interest lies in understanding about the anthropology of time, I love to read, understand and investigate how human beings relate to time, particularly during crises.”

Onome Abboh, Barista: “It was hard not knowing. I felt really, really trapped. There is nothing for you to do but look inwards. I’ve realised lots of things like, I got really depressed and really, really homesick. These are things I have felt before, but the lockdown compounded everything.” “It was the most beautiful weather outside, but there is no one outside, you can’t really go outside. You can’t see your friends, you can’t shop. You can’t really afford things, because you’re getting 60% of your actual wage. There was a lot of anxiety.” “I started to walk and to learn a bit more German. The latter didn’t last for so long. I walked a lot. Walking was the only thing that too my mind off things.” “I think taking a step back, things slowing down and getting to know myself, isone of the positives people will get out of this experience.” “I’ve looked inside to find out what upsets me, what triggers me, what my past traumas are, and just try and deal with them. I think, without this pandemic, there are a lot of things I wouldn’t have addressed.” “There is still a lot of love between people, a lot of looking out for each other.”

Shams Anders, Photographer: “In the beginning, in March [2020], I didn’t really believe it, because I was in the countryside working on a project, but when I came back to city, I noticed. I started to believe it was really real.”“I can only see negative aspect of corona, I cannot travel, I lost jobs, partnerscouldn’t honour contracts. For me it’s bad days now.”“I have some close friends who don’t believe in it and prefer to believe in the conspiracy stuff. And they still don’t believe that corona exists, and they run around, they don’t care. And they tell this to their children, so their children do the same.” “When the lockdown happened, I really enjoyed the silence and the streets.”“The best for others that I see, not for me. I hope for them that they really have time to reflect and have a little time out. I wish it for them, because it’s part of my life. I’m lucky to see that other people have the opportunity now to have these experiences. To watch society from the outside, what I normally do as an artist.”

Elham Al Marzooqi, Lawyer and First Female Emirati Cellist: “I knew I had to derive some positives: being with my family was a big plus as my life as a lawyer and cellist pulled me in different directions, but once the pandemic hit, music work dried up overnight. I work in the event management industry, but we managed to pull through without laying off anyone. I decided this was the time to really spend more time with practicing the cello, learning new repertoire, and was even selected in an online cello academy course, as naively, I thought this ‘work from home’ period would last a couple of months at most.” “I realised I was more resilient than I thought. I tried to gain the positives from such a bleak situation. I am grateful that I live in a society where health care matters, even though the rules surrounding such care may seem onerous.”

Ghada Kunash and Founder of The Workshop Dubai: “You might think it’s weird to say but, I must say that I enjoyed every minute of those three months of total lockdown, we are surely lucky to be living in a relatively big house with a garden to move, breath, and change scenery.” “The ‘positive’ I call it; To have my daughter back living with us again for so long continuously was surely a blessing. Having enough time to read my piling books that I keep on buying,promising myself to slow down in my daily routine,in life, and take serious time out to read.” “Witnessing how much humans can be humans towards each other, how beautiful it is that people check on each other, how ready everyone was to help in anyway way theycould, how many volunteers came out, notprofessionals doing their jobs, and many lost their health and life trying to help others.”

Dina Yasin, Creative Consultant and Founder of Efro & Co: “In the beginning, it was intense, not being able to go out, curfew, etc., but I spent it relaxing, I slept a lot which allowed me to rethink my life, I took courses which led me to decide to do my MBA- best decision ever. I believe the lockdown gave me the opportunity to look at my life clearly and prioritize certain things, including myself, health, and well-being. I learned how to prioritize myself, my health, my well-being, it led me to getting two scholarships to complete an MBA at a prestigious European Business School in Milan. I saw reality as I needed to and as it should be andlearned that slowness was the way forward for me while appreciating every moment.” “We need to prioritize the environment, the well-being of our planet, wildlife, how we can all live as one. How developmental factors can hinder the world and how we as a human race can work on finding better alternatives. There needs to be more love in this world, acceptance, and accountability for ignorance.”

Joan Muwahed, Journalist: “I had a unique experience during lockdown. I was stuck in Washington D.C. at the start of the pandemic in March 2020. I’ve always lived in Dubai, UAE but I was working in Washington D.C. at the time --when lockdown restrictions were starting to take place. I was away from the one thing that usually keeps me sane--my family –and I just happened to be about 11,325 kms away from them. Coping was strange at the start –I still remember when there were mandates to wear masks to the grocery store. It was all strange –everything felt very eerie –as if I’d come out of a horror movie. Is this real life? I’d ask myself this question every day.I spent a lot of my time with what I like to call my “best friends”, my dumbbells, doing small exercises in my living room. It was something to looked forward to. I created a routine –wake up, make breakfast, read, work, shower, work out, go out for a walk in the park, sleep, and repeat. As long as I had some sort of routine, I felt a little better about not wasting time.” “Although I expressed that the hardship of my lockdown experience was running out of time, I also saw that as a reminder to stop, rest and reassess many decisions I take instead of running at every opportunity to make up for lost time. I read a lot of books and explored new authors during lockdown, I spent time checking up on friends I haven’t talked to in years, and most importantly –after a lot of time reflecting --I realised I wanted to leave the United States. I spent time with myself more than I everhad before -even though that drove me nuts –it also reminded me to take care of myself.” “COVID changed the landscape of how we operate at a news channel. In my field of work –we have adjusted to using zoom for most of our on-TV interviews –which means it’s easier to speak to any guest we would like –wherever they would be. That is something that we did not have access to prior to the pandemic and that is powerful.”

Anthoni (John) Yallamilli, Tailor: “I was very worried about not earning, I didn’t know what the future held for us. Working as a tailor, we had many orders to fulfill, so I was a little stressed, but had great support from our boss.” “Staying at home, doing nothing pretty much always, it wasn’t pleasant, but then I took advantage of getting the rest I needed.” “I think and believe and learned a lot aboutthe importance of becoming humble and hopefully savouring every moment. I think where we’re at is a good start through many considerations.”

Nathalie Salas, Service Designer: "Lockdown for me and family was fabulous. My husband had been constantly traveling. It was a chance to reconnect as a family. Obviously, we had to adjust with both of us working at home, but it didn’t take long to get into a groove. We were able to spend time in the garden and enjoy the good weather.” “I was comfortable to be alone with my family without the need to socialise. I know many people suffered being alone, but it reconfirmed that socialising is all about the quality of the people around you, not the quantity.” “Remote working has been a great positive to enable a healthier work-life balance. People have got used to the fact that business can go on via Zoom and be equally effective and productive.”

Saba Jamili, Architect: “For me it's been more of a personal experience. The first couple of days and even the first month, were a totally different life. including home office, home gym, home food and at the end of the day, it was a stay-at-home life.I don't want to say it was a good time because a lot of people had rough times,but for me it was different, more time to listen to the people around me, more time to call my family more time to workout. It was as if time was running out.” “I was thinking of how I can pass timepositively; the hard part was me being away from my family and loved ones. I couldn’t stop thinking about them.” “My positive experience was getting to spend more time with family and friends even if it was through video call, doing the things that I never hadtime to dopreviously, learning to play a musical instrument, learning a new language and starting a healthy lifestyle.”“For the first time in my life, everyone was living the same situation. It didn’t matter where you are from or what is your religion. It is as John Lennon once sang in Imagine:” and the world will be as one.” Everyone being worried about each other was one of the best human behavioursI have experienced.” “In these past couple of years, I really learned that you only live once. It doesn’t matter what people think about you. Do what makes you happy and your life will be more beautiful with the energy you will be radiating and receiving” “The world means us, all of us. When we learn from our lessons and start acting upon it, the world is going to change.”

Saif Al Muhairi, Comedian: “Being an introvert being stuck at home with fast Wi-Fi, a library and my gaming systems it was as ideal as lockdowns could be.” “I got a lot of reading done, started meditation and got more time to write.” “One of the best things was my mates and I getting together online to celebrate our friend’s birthday online from all four corners of the world.” “We should be caring less about ourselves, what others think about us,and how we live our lives, and showing others a little more kindness and understanding.”

Sandhya Lalloo-Morar, Founder of The Ido Movement: “At the beginning, it was a truly surreal experience. It was just unbelievable for bustling cities to grind to a halt. I recall arriving at DXB airport just a few days before the official lockdown was declared, as I waited for my bags to arrive, there was an eery calmness reminiscent of an apocalyptic movie. The always busy airport was completely empty and so too were the streets.” “For me, it was a time for reflection. I was happy to just stop, take a breather from all the activities that just kept me running around each day and to spend quality time with my family. I did not have the feeling of missing out on something. “ “For me,the pandemic showed how people can come together in a time of immense difficulty to help each other. A personal experience of mine was when my dad, a medical doctor practicing in rural South Africa contracted the virus from a patient and as a result passed it on to my mum as well. I was truly blessed to have so many people coming forth offering oxygen tanks, support to clean and bring food to my parents and to help when close family could not be around.” “One of the key positives is the digital transformation of our world. We have seen a much faster movement in terms of government services as well private business moving their services online in a more effective way which promotes the way of working in the future. Health care systems have been stressed to a point where there is now a greater focus on building out the infrastructure to be more resilient in future. Also, people working from home finding a new balance between work and life and putting mental and physical health as priorities has been a key positive.”

Sherief Elsayed, Consultant Spinal Surgeon: “There is no doubt that we all felt apprehensive –not knowing what precisely we were dealing with, whether we as individuals would succumb, and what the world would look like on the other side. From a healthcare professional perspective, myself and colleagues seeing patients on a daily basis, this apprehension was only increased at the beginning of the pandemic.” “Being a doctor meant I needed to be in hospital as normal. I was fortunate that I could still put my skills to use, to reassure those that had no serious conditions but still be able to operate on those who urgently needed it –those about to be paralysed without surgery for example.” “A positive, collaborative approach to helping those desperately in need. When I did need to operate, the whole team came together to make sure we all had the appropriate PPE, to ensure that we put it on and took it off correctly, and to ensure that everything functioned as smoothly as it could –it was a demonstration of teamwork at its finest.” “Sticking with the healthcare theme, I believe the rapid development of mRNA vaccines will see us develop this technology further –and may even allow us to have vaccines to a whole host of diseases much sooner than we had thought –cancer vaccines for example.” “Certain professions have seen their ability to continue being productive by working from home, and this can only have a positive impact on the environment by reducing travel (albeit at the cost of train station vendors, airline revenues and more).”

Caitlin McLeod, Filmmaker: “I was in a really ironic position, working on a film that was being shot in Haifa by a Palestinian filmmaker. He had written it ten years ago, it was about some virus that was let loose in Israel and Gaza was the only safe place, because it’s walled off. It’s kind of a dark comedy. We were working on that and slowly this stuff started to trickle in. This was the second week of February, and the set designers were saying that it was harder and harder to find masks for the extras. The producers were saying that it was good, because it would bring more attention to the film. They had to stop a week before the end of filming, and they still hadn’t completed the film. It cut off just then, and I had to fly home. So, it was a bit strange, it was really ironic and a joke for a while, then it turned serious and quite scary.” “I think I felt, in part of my mind, oh this is the time to be super creative, just being by myself, reading a lot and all that. But, actually, I couldn’t do anything during lockdown. I just didn’t have any inspiration, didn’t know how to access any creativity.” “You expected in this time to, when you pass someone, for there to be a connection. Like ‘isn’t this weird?’, and everyone looking at each other. There was nothing. No connection. No one wanted to share.”

Hanna Hinz, Luxury Hospitality Professional: ”I, like the majority of people in my immediate surroundings looked with empathy and disbelief towards the emerging situation in China. The emptiness of the mega-cities appeared rather surreal. I did feel though that the virus was "far away", and I wasn't too concerned to be honest.” “At the end of February, I left the office for a business trip to the UAE. Shortly before leaving, I turned to my superior and asked if he expects ITB (the world's largest tourism fair,scheduled to take place in March annually) to be cancelled. He responded: "If ITB does get cancelled, the world is not going to be as we know it.". A week later, the authorities indeed cancelled the trade fair, and this marked the beginning of Covid 19 to me.“ "I came back super sick from Dubai & Abu Dhabi. I attended an international tourism fair there. Back in Berlin, no doctor wanted to see me as I very well might have picked up the virus. It was nerve wracking, and I spent days on the phone until eventually, the local authorities decided that I must get tested. I was among the first ones in Berlin. I ended up being negative, but it took weeks to recover. When I finally felt better, the German government asked everyone to stay in. Many people started to complain after the first week at home, although Berlin never had such a severe lock down as Italy did. It was week 4 for me.” “Professionally, I have been furloughed since March. My beloved tourism industry was among the first to be hit, and it will be among the very last ones to return. At this point, no one is sure anymore if damages are recoverable. Globally, millions have lost their jobs, income and perspective.” “I hated that others continue to use platforms for the wildest theories. I don't understand that people just can't count their blessings and/ or educate themselves how hard lesser developed countries are forced to deal with the virus. Instead, tens of thousands marched the streets to demand to have their nails and hair done. Others made a fortune bunkering masks and selling them for ridiculous prices at the peak of the pandemic. To even read how some bragged about the money they made was sickening.” “Having travelled extensively, I enjoyed being at home for a while. I took the regulations seriously and kept myself busy. I never understood how people could feel "caged" at home. I thought it was a privilege to feel safe at home,and I finished A LOT of projects which I've been postponing forever.” “Technology definitely helped a lot over the first months. To be able to connect with friends, family, colleagues and industry professionals was a major plus. Overall, there was a whole lot of creativity online -for a change. I really did enjoy the sense of ‘we are in this together’,and how easy it was to feel connected. I thought the developed world really needed this to regain focus on what really matters and to use our mobile phones, tablets and laptops to help each other."

Hanna Shenson, Set Designer & Content Creator: “When lockdown came, I felt like my life didn’t change a lot, because I’m self-employed. I work from home, but my daughter had to stay at home too, so we had to share my computer for her home-schooling.” “I was surprised that some people had so much fear that they started telling others that this wasn’t real. All the conspiracy theorists, some of these people are educated enough and I thought they could handle this problem. But when you have a lot of fear about something and you cannot control it, doesn’t matter if it’s a pandemic or something else, you try and get this control.” “I did photography and retouching, I had more work from home, so I wasn’t thinking about my other jobs that disappeared. I am person who is not shocked by problems. I live in Berlin and there are a lot of opportunities here.” “We tried to build something new and help each other. In our house we tried to go shopping for older people. We took a lot of online classes, we offered free exercise classes. We tried to spread positivity.” “I think it’s a chance for us to take time, a break from everything we had before. Because it was so interesting for me, a very unique situation, that you can never imagine in your life. To press on the stop button, on everything. It’s just a stop button, not the end."

Liron Leibu, Commercial Photographer: “I wasn’t really affected by it [the lockdown], people still needed their pictures, as a lot of things I do is helping people to sell their products or present their art. People actually needed that at this time. Some people didn’t have the money to pay, so we agreed om some flexible conditions.” “I kept taking public transport. At the U-Bahn station at 9am, there was nowhere there. I was all alone. I liked it.” “There were a couple of weeks that were really quiet. I took a lot of pictures. I walked a lot. Sometimes it was only me and the homeless.” “It was nice to see everybody else being quiet and to see the world slowing down. I wish it was always like that.”

Verena Sechelmann, Television Production Assistant and Model: "I was kinda lost, becauseI was applying for a job I always wanted. Due to the corona virus, they couldn’t take me, they wanted to, but they just didn’t have any work left. Then I had to a job I didn’t really like, then two jobs, then both jobs turned down. Then I sat at home, alone.” “I’ve experienced some paranoia stuff from one of my closest friends and her mother. I was visiting them, and I only see her once or twice a year. I was seeing her, and I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t do it, and she was like ‘why don’t you do it? Why are you being like this?’” “I was worried about my parents seeing my grandmother because my mother wasn’t taking it seriously. My grandmother is everything to me. I was worrying a lot.” “In April, my mum called. She wanted to see me. I said OK, we can see each other, let’s do it outside with distance please. She didn’t understand me at all. Now she does. A few weeks ago, she called me and told me ‘No, we can’t see each other. Please stay home, we will see each other when it’s better’” “I got a job, home schooling children. They paid me well, I was kinda lucky to get the job. I thought it was really beautiful, even though it was really stressful. It reminded me of working in a kindergarten after graduating. It was kinda lovely.” “I think most people appreciate life more and will really appreciate going to any place without putting something on their face.”

Current Exhibition

Yamam Nabeel: Intersecting Realities