At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, photographer Marzena Wasikowska went behind the scenes to document Canberra’s frontline health workers.
06 March 2023
It’s 2021 and the ACT is amid the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Marzena Wasikowska lines up among the nurses at the AIS mass vaccination clinic, although she’s armed with a camera, instead of a syringe.
“We were in full PPE, and we were able to see the mechanism that the operation was. We were able to observe the flow of people and the synchronicity of it,” Marzena said.
“The staff looked like marching angels that approached the cars, the way their gowns floated with the illumination through the doors.”
Marzena’s work has been featured in the new Canberra Museum and Gallery exhibition, Stronger Together, alongside fellow artists Dion Georgopoulos and Waratah Lahy.
All three artists visited Canberra’s testing and vaccination sites to capture the work of Canberra Health Services staff.
“I got involved approximately halfway through COVID-19 pandemic, the other artists and I went on a tour behind the scenes, so we saw the nurses that draw up the immunisation, the storage, and the whole complexity and paraphernalia of what was the AIS and the EPIC testing site,” Marzena said.
Stronger Together is on show at the Canberra Museum and Gallery until 30 July 2023 and entry is free.
More information is available on the CMAG website: http://www.cmag.com.au/exhibitions/stronger-together
Images
- Stronger Together exhibition space at Canberra Museum and Gallery
- AIS Vaccination Centre 2022, digital photograph, Commissioned by Canberra Health Services, 2022
- Portraits, digital photographs, Dion Georgopoulos, Commissioned by Canberra Health Services, 2022
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