Melbourne Housing tower artists to aid in community recovery after COVID-19 hard lockdown
When a coronavirus outbreak put nine city housing estates into immediate hard lockdown there was no warning, sending ripples of fear through the community. Now residents are sharing their stories through art in a bid to heal.
Melbourne City
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Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV) has embarked on a new project responding to the unique hard lockdown experienced by housing tower residents after a COVID-19 outbreak.
MAV is inviting writers, visual artists, music and sound producers, songwriters and composers to create works that can be shared online for body of work named Shelter.
In July an immediate hard lockdown was imposed on nine estates, confining thousands of people to their homes for days in response to a surge in coronavirus cases.
There was no warning, with many residents coming home to find a heavy police presence, sparking fear, confusion and distress.
VicHealth, Creative Victoria and City of Melbourne are supporting MAV to resource artists living in the nine public housing estates affected.
The initiative hopes to give a voice to those who experienced the lockdown, and to help begin the recovery process.
MAV programming manager Candy Bowers said this was one step to allow residents to heal.
“We are all in this together and the only way we can make it through is t stay connected,” she said.
“We want to elevate and give back to this community who that has been hurting, the artists can help them tell their stories.
“There is a mix of artists creating a body of work but also community members, mothers and daughters (and) young people lifting into the artistic space so they can see themselves reflected.”
Ahmed Dini, Khalid Farah and Barry Beri are all involved in the Shelter project.
Through the hard lockdown they became youth leaders, mental health advocates and essential in cross-generational support in the North Melbourne community.
North Melbourne public housing resident and photographer Khalid Farah is writing about the unheard positive stories seen throughout the unique hard lockdown experienced by the whole community.
Ethiopian born jazz and contemporary musician Zelalem Negatu is creating a new song for the project and said the hard lockdown was a call to everything that the pandemic took away.
“The song I’m recording for Shelter 2 captures the emotions of this experience for me - a mix of sadness, loneliness, missing human contact, questioning the meaning of freedom and life, and praying for better days,” he said.
Creative works produced during the first round of Shelter works can be viewed online and 15 recipients of Shelter ‘two’ have just been announced with expressions of interest still open.
The Melbourne City News will continue to publish more community stories about the public housing towers and their COVID-19 recovery.
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Contact Grace at grace.mckinnon@news.com.au