Hanah Ahmed Graphic and Media Design It's Wednesday 22ND April, it is the 5th week of UK lockdown. At this point I have adjusted to life in lockdown, however week one took a toll on my mental health greatly. I think it was a combination of the anxiety and uncertainty of not knowing when this will end, reading the news way too much, and the thought that I won’t see my friends or boyfriend for an uncertain amount of time. I have been attempting a mental reset for the past few weeks and trying to appreciate all the good things I have right now, I’m quarantined with my family, I can FaceTime people as much as I want, I can go for a walk in the park once a day and get fresh air, and most of all, i’m healthy and safe. In terms of my own creative practise, the majority of my work has always been digital based. My focus is on digital graphic design and animation, I’m rarely a printmaker and always found myself spending a lot more time in the digital suite than any of the print studios in LCC, so adjusting to working from home wasn’t too hard for me. However the lockdown does mean that my search for another internship has been put on hold. On the bright side, this gives me plenty of time to work on my individual practise and projects, such as my D&AD submission, a SIP and my Thesis. I’m really used to going to uni whenever I need to do any work, so It’s been difficult to balance working, sleeping, and relaxing all in my bedroom. And at first caused insomnia because I couldn’t switch off doing all those things in the same environment, so I resulted in using my parents bedroom during the day as my studio. (Like the young professional I am.) I have been trying to stay motivated and productive by completing some projects of my own., right now I am working on my submission for the D&AD new blood awards, creating a new bike scheme in Leeds. All my work will be created digitally using mainly Cinema 4D for a project for the first time! The pandemic has been difficult for a lot of creatives to adapt to. I am very lucky that I’ve been able to work almost as normal at home. I truly feel for my DPS classmates who are printmakers and can’t access the studios and equipment to complete their work, the people who have had internships cut short, and the people currently still stuck abroad.
It is evident that we as creatives and companies are being forced to have a large online presence to stay alive and relevant due to the pandemic. I think this shows we are in the process of adapting and moving towards a future of creating mostly digital artwork as oppose to physical work. An example of this progression of work to online platforms is the 2020 UAL degree show being completely online, which is something that has never been done before, and may become the norm! This makes me question whether the role of print will be as influential in 5 years time. I feel that our creativity is a great resource to keep us productive, occupied (and sometimes distracted.) I do however think that as good as it is for our mental health to stay productive, it is absolutely OK as a creative to feel unproductive or unmotivated to carry on making creative work during these scary, uncertain times where nothing feels normal. Stay safe everyone!
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