DAMCHO DYSON

(She/her)
Artist

10 December 2020
Wurundjeri, Woi Wurrung Country

I’m Damcho. I was an artist, became a nun, returned to being an artist again. I guess at this point, where we are [moving] towards our summer version of lifted restrictions, I’m missing the extra space that the lockdown gave me. Despite the challenges that it brought, like witnessing the impact on friends and family and financial challenges and all that, to me it was a really great gift of time and space and no pressure. I guess because it gave me the opportunity to go quite deeply into the types of reflection I wanted to do through my art practice, it lifted the expectation that came with having to produce anything because there was no idea of what we were working towards, I guess.

At the same time, the gift of that time was ever expanding and contracting. Sometimes it felt like there was too much time to fill. The weeks, the days, the hours were very long. And other times, I guess, the global threat that it produced and the way that resonate[d] [with] each of us made the time feel really constricted. And there was a sense of panic. I remember distinctly right at the beginning when it was very speculative, like what is this going to mean? The ways of us personally and societally adapting have shifted a lot, or concertinaed, and with that the personal processing [of], “How am I going to deal?” The isolation, the loneliness that comes with it, but also the invitation to turn in[wards] and to heal. That sense of us having to simplify the way we structure our lives and where we put our energy each day made me completely realise how elaborately we construct time and our activities, and already there’s a nostalgia for wanting that simplicity back. I was touched by the tenderness [and] care of the Victorian government, I really felt looked after. I felt like community and people were prioritised, which is really important. I know that didn’t happen state-wide, and there are things [the Victorian government did] I wasn’t happy with, but just in terms of the Coronavirus.

I guess what the year [has] done is amplified our experience of how to live our lives and how we interact with those around us. In that sense I think we’ve each probably met some kind of mirror that shows us something beneficial or something challenging, and also some sense of shared responsibility and shared community. I do feel like Melbourne as a community feels more substantial than my feeling of it at the start of the year. I hope that with those personal insights we can find Ways to support others in making change, or to make our own changes and to move towards a healthier community.