Kids Lockdown Photo Project

At the start of the pandemic, I ran a participatory photography workshop for my then seven year-old daughter and her classmates. Run via a WhatsApp group, the children were encouraged to document their immediate environment and daily lives during lockdown using simple cameras or mobile phones. They were set weekly themes and each week the resulting photos were shared with the group. The process of documentation and sharing of images allowed the children to better come to terms with their newfound isolation from one another. The resulting photographs afford us a unique and multi-faceted reflection on the beginnings of an unfolding international crisis, from a seven year-old’s perspective. In January 2021, in collaboration with The Guardian newspaper, I revisited the project and expanded it to cover a wider geographical area. The more recent images show the UK’s second Covid lockdown and the experience of homeschool through the eyes of children up and down the country.