Over the past year or so, artists from Shepparton to Tehran have been working together on a special project.
COVID-Collaborations: A Shared Step on a Long Journey is opening at the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) on Saturday in partnership with the Shepparton Festival.
The exhibition is the brainchild of renowned artist William Kelly, who wanted to bring people together during a time of great dislocation.
"In late 2020 it seemed that people were separated from each other: we couldn't fly, we couldn't visit, it was a very difficult time," he said.
"So, I thought, 'Well, if we can bring some ideas and people together somehow, that would be an interesting challenge'."
Mr Kelly, a resident of Nathalia, contacted different visual artists and poets that he knew or had worked with from around the world with an idea.
He would send them through a preliminary image he had created, a template of sorts, and they could do whatever they wanted to it: write on it, draw on it, paint it.
Mr Kelly said it was wonderful to see what each artist would come back with.
"I had no idea what the results were going to be," he said.
"The same experience is so varied; but they are all reflecting our world."
COVID experiences around the world
There are 28 artists who have contributed to the project, sharing their perspectives on how COVID has changed their particular part of the world.
Yorta Yorta artist Rochelle Patten contributed, as well as Moroccan poet Samuel Elias Pritchard, American First Nations artist Edgar Heap of Birds, and Scottish artist and academic Mary Mundee.
"The exhibition shines a light on how we have managed to stay connected across borders, language, and beliefs," SAM's exhibitions curator, Jessica O'Farrell, said.
"William Kelly has captured a snapshot of life across the world at the peak of the pandemic and as we continue to live with COVID, the project highlights how far we have come."
The exhibition was originally meant to be shown during Shepparton Festival last year, but COVID put a stop to in-person art.
Determined to bring the show to the community somehow, the creative director of the festival, Jamie Lea, came up with the idea to project six-metre-tall versions of some of the artworks on the side of the new SAM building on a nightly basis.
"The works show a deep connection to a point in time of individual struggle, resilience, and personal growth.
Mr Kelly and is thrilled the full exhibition can now be opened to the public.
"As artists we tend to be wanting to share; share ideas and that. These are rather humble works, but they tell a very, very interesting story about this three-year period."
