Plastic bag

As we are all probably sick of hearing by now, we live in unprecedented times. Every business, person and institution has had to bring in a flurry of changes to counter the threat of the pandemic. Amongst that flurry, hidden between the headlines, was a change to visiting procedures in hospitals, which meant that family members and friends were no longer able to visit their loved ones in hospital.

This seemed to me to be a particularly cruel measure, one that shut patients from the real world into a world of masks and medicine. Their only real link to the outside world was through technology (such as tablet computers and video calls) and these plastic bags that I want to focus on.

Over the last few weeks, unable to visit their loved ones in person, family members and friends have been coming in to the hospital to leave items for their loved ones in bags, often supermarket plastic bags. I have seen hundreds of bags of electronics, toiletries, clothes, drinks, snacks and hot food coming up and down from the wards, many of them from family that come regularly to drop off a lunch or dinner for their relative.

Once we've received the bags, we take down the details of who and where it's going to, and write the details on the bag. After that is the most satisfying part, taking them up to the ward. Without fail, every bag I've taken up to a patient is followed closely by joy or excitement. For many patients, I leave the bags on the table by their bedside and they just look at it happily.

It was this that I wanted to capture in the piece I created - the moment a humble, forgotten, plastic bag turns into something special.

Harris Nageswaran, June 2020

Interpretive Voices https://www.creativeenquiry.qmul.ac.uk/?page_id=2012 @CreativeEnquiry