CO:DID20 Exhibition

In Lockdown 2020, Revd Jean Lamb, Associate Priest at All Hallows Church, Gedling, looked for a way to encourage her congregations and recreate a sense of normality. Through this, the CO:DID 20 exhibition was created.

Alongside her son, designer Will McGrath, and her daughter-in-law, Ellie Buchan, Jean’s exhibition idea evolved into a way to digitally record everybody’s creative expressions. From the communities in Gedling and Lambley, they have received poetry, music, photography, crafts, art, scientific reflections – even pictures of a greenhouse Richard Seddon built!

Now in All Hallows, they are finally on display as a reminder of the challenges of the first lockdown.

Jean contributed artworks such as watercolour of two cactus blooms representing fertility next to a sketch of her pregnant daughter-in-law to explore the hope that could be found in everyday life.

People inspired each other with photographs of country walks being turned into paintings. Joan Langridge’s poem about the world was set to music, then sung as a virtual choir and recorded for the exhibit.

A few contributors crocheted and knitted baby items for the local hospitals while Susan Laplanche created mosaics to thank the NHS. Claire Chetwyn Allen shared a painting of her allotment as it’s where she felt happiest in lockdown.

Speaking about the exhibition, Jean said: “The exhibition is the expression of the resources which God gave us during Lockdown to be creative – for many people in a completely new way.  It is also pastoral in that the Exhibition is reflecting back to the Creator and to the viewer about how God can hold us steady in times of stress.”