Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid-19

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid-19

“It felt like I had lost a lot of ‘growing up’ experiences due to lockdown, Through Our Lens gave me back a social aspect. Seeing other young people dealing and coping through the same emotions was extremely comforting. Using the camera as a tool to express my voice was, and still is, something really necessary. I believe we could all learn a little something from each other.”

Morgan Foord, 16

Covid-19 has impacted on all our lives, hindering opportunities and enforcing isolation between families and communities. Many of us are familiar with the impact of school closures and working from home, however first hand stories of young peoples’ pandemic experiences have largely gone unnoticed. Through Our Lens features photographs taken, by a group of diverse teenagers from across the Bradford District in spring and early summer 2020, during the first national lockdown. The young people represent a spectrum of social and cultural backgrounds, including a number of refugees who moved to Bradford, only to be plunged straight into isolation as the pandemic took hold.

The participants worked with artist Carolyn Mendelsohn, who quickly responded to the critical need for community and collaboration by setting up weekly online creative workshops, offering guidance and mentoring via Zoom.

Mendelsohn taught them the skills to use photography as a tool to document their experiences. This helped the young people make sense of their changing worlds and gave them a platform to tell their personal stories.

Some of the photographs in this newspaper are accompanied with words written during those first four uncertain months of the Covid pandemic.

These honest accounts open up their worlds and allows us to feel the emotions felt by them at the time. Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid-19 shares some of these invaluable stories and offers a vital window into how young people adapted to an incredibly challenging period.

Mendelsohn has ignited a passion for photography in these young people that will grow going forward. The photographs are some of the most thoughtful, perceptive and compelling photographic works to emerge from this period, demonstrating a skill beyond age and giving us an exciting insight into the next generation of photographers. Through Our Lens is both a reflection on a period of adversity, as well as a celebration of the resilience, dedication and spirit of a remarkable group of young people.

First published in January 2022 to coincide with the exhibition Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid-19 at Impressions Gallery, Bradford.

Impressions Gallery is a charity that helps people understand the world through photography. As well as providing mentorship, Through Our Lens has been financially supported by Impressions Gallery since the project’s inception, and reflects the gallery’s commitment to nurturing new generations of photographic talent.

Carolyn Mendelsohn is an award winning photographer whose work is rooted in telling stories and amplifying the voices of those who are not always heard.

Through Our Lens was initially funded by a Response grant from Bradford Council. The project worked with other groups, including a younger group of six to eleven year olds and Bradford College English as a Second Language students. To date, Mendelsohn has worked with more than one hundred young people. Some of their work can be viewed on Instagram through_our_lens_covid19_proj The project has also received support from Arts Council England, Bradford Council, Impressions Gallery, National Science and Media Museum, and Bradford College.

Some of the photographs have been acquired as part of The Photographic Archive of Bradford Museums and Galleries, making the photographs available in years to come for those who want to see what life was like during Covid-19.

Cover image Amy Lorrimer, 16 2.

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

My sister Freya

”We’re all surrounded by the news at the moment hoping for some more normality with every day that passes, but it can get really stressful and confusing at times. We’ve been told one thing by people and then been told the complete opposite within only a few hours. I just really want to know when I can go back to dance classes.”

Erin McVeigh, 14

Jennifer Adams, 16 3.

”The most exciting part of my day seems to be going out for a walk and exploring the neighbourhood as if we haven’t lived there for 16 years already. You never normally think to explore the place you know best but now we are finding ourselves wondering why we hadn’t done this sooner. The only problem with these fun walks being the highlight of my day is that when I check the forecast to discover a week full of rain ahead I find little to look forward to. All the little tasks we never had time for before have now been completed and the realisation of just how many fun plans we are missing kicks in.“ 4.

Amy Lorrimer, 16

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

Mahnoor Akhlaq, 19

Esme Duckworth, 13

5.

Self portrait Abdi Warsame, 17 6.

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

Self portrait Ladislav Demeter, 17 7.

Self portrait Esme Duckworth, 13 8.

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

Self portrait Ella Curtis, 17

Wigden Elagib, 17 9.

Suad Mahmoud, 19 10 .

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

“I believed this year was going to be the year I gained more insight into my future. I had poured all my sweat blood and tears into revision for my GCSEs. I had control over my possibilities. This made me feel more secure, until the Corona virus pandemic meant my GCSE exams were cancelled.“ Hamza Saraj, 15

Morgan Foord, 16 11.

12 .

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

“ Time feels very weird at the moment, both fast and slow. I’m finding that photography is a nice way of documenting changes and is a therapeutic focus. Under different circumstances I think everyone would benefit from having a time where routine life is put on hold. Time to catch up with themselves, look after themselves and really notice things around them.”

Alice Duckworth, 17 1 3.

Self portrait Jay Kundu, 12 1 4.

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

Self portrait “I wanted to try and convey the stressful feeling of having to learn by myself in isolation with the looming fear of A level exams next year. It seems like my bedroom turned into my classroom before I knew it. A ‘work-life balance’ topples over when your life is put on hold.”

Harry Berry, 16 15.

Louie Goater, 15

1 6.

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

Holly Wade, 15

Holly Wade, 15

17.

“The best way to describe how I feel in this situation is that we are the flowers and the ice is lockdown, if you allow the ice to melt the flowers will come out in one piece but if you break the ice the flowers will break too. I think that although I want everything to return to normal it is happening too soon and the government is breaking the ice due to their greed and allowing us to suffer.”

Amilah Majid, 14 18.

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

Wigden Elagib, 17

Hamza Saraj, 14 1 9.

“Before all this happened, I was in my last few months of A levels, getting ready to take my exams and applying to universities. Apart from seeing the people I love, what I’m looking forward to most after all this is moving out and being able to go to gigs again.

At times I feel hopeless, but this is all for the best; it doesn’t make it any easier.”

Evie Sharp, 17 2 0.

Nagat Ahmed, 20 Self portrait Lara Ramsden, 13

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

”One of the hardest things is not seeing family and friends, the people you see everyday that are now suddenly not in your life. Seeing these two (my grandparents) just brightens up my day. To see how well they are getting on even though they have it the hardest just brings me hope.”

Ella Brimble, 14 21 .

Self portrait Chester Jones, 15 22.

Chester Jones, 15

Through Our Lens: Growing up with Covid–19

“I took these photos through the cracks and holes in the tall fence in our back garden. I was sick of the view in our garden so peeked through the fence. Lockdown feels like being trapped in a hole.”

Lara Ramsden, 13 23.

Taylor Russell, 16

Powerful photographs capturing the emotion and experiences of Bradford teenagers during the first national lockdown.

Edited by Anne McNeill, in collaboration with Carolyn Mendelsohn and the young people who took part in Through Our Lens.

www.impressions-gallery.com www.throughourlens.co.uk

Photographs © Through Our Lens participants Text © Impressions Gallery.

Designed by Rachael Lightowler Design & Creative.

Printed by Mortons Printing, Horncastle, UK.

Charity No. 503238 ISBN 0-906361-42-7