Covid Chronicles from the Margins

Explore the art throughout this website to understand what life is like during the Covid-19 pandemic from the perspectives of creative asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants in the UK and around the world.

Artwork in Cardiff by My Dog Sighs, showing solidarity with Ukraine. "We've all sat and watched this hideous situation unfurl, and while it's not much, I wanted to do what I know best (throwing paint) to highlight my sadness and anger over the Ukrainian invasion by Russia." - My Dog Sighs

People all over the country have been protesting against the Anti-Refugee Bill. This picture shows Sanctuary on Sea creating an orange heart on their beach in solidarity with the Together with Refugees campaign.

BT is a makeup artist from Iraq who has been living in Germany since 2015. BT finally found safety and sanctuary after years of victimisation in Iraq.

This talented artist took up watercolour painting during the lockdown. The pandemic has prompted many to discover hidden gifts they did not know they had.

I am 23 years old. I come from a small farming village in Darfur, Sudan. I had to leave my home and family when I was 20 years old. As a member of the Masalit tribe, we have been subject over many years to violent attacks by armed militias who want to kill us. I had to escape and flee the conflict. I left behind my mother, father, five brothers and two sisters. They still live in fear, but not everyone gets to leave.

Devastating floods hit the Kutupalong Rohingya Refugee Camp in Bangladesh back in July 2021. Contributors to our project who live there have been sharing regular updates with our team. You can read more about the situation in the blog section.

Victor Flores and his wife, both from El Salvador, have been in the UK since 2019 waiting for a Home Office response to their asylum claim. This photo titled "Uncertainty" shows the innocent happiness of their one-year-old son under lockdown, but it expresses the family’s mixed feelings as well.

One of our project contributors sent us photos of the delicious food his children had produced. He told us: "Lockdown meant I had more time with my little kids. Baking and cake making became our hobby and my kids loved it … Different shapes, colours and tastes."

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”

Warsan Shire, British Somali writer and poet

"We are all in this together... the media keeps repeating that we're all in the same boat and this isn't quite right. The virus is impacting the lives of people differently and there is no point in denying this."

A refugee contributor

"Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.

Part 1, quote by Arundhati Roy

We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us.

Part 2, quote by Arundhati Roy

Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it."

Part 3, quote by Arundhati Roy

Lockdown and other restrictions present an opportunity for the mainstream population to better understand the lives of asylum seekers and refugees, who have long since known confinement, isolation, fear of visible and invisible enemies, and uncertainty about what the future may bring. Their “small acts” of artistic and creative resistance, documented here, prove their resilience and show the power of solidarity. Together we continue chronicling the dark and lighter sides of Covid-19 through.