Holding Together, Keeping Apart

Date13 April 2020

Object number00055844

NamePoster

Mediumink on paper

DimensionsOverall: 812 × 607 mm
Overall (image): 679 × 507 mm

ClassificationsPosters and postcards

Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection

Terms

DescriptionPoster by David Pope titled 'Holding Together, Keeping Apart' featuring an illustration of people on circular yellow inflatable liferafts tied to each other on a rolling sea so they don’t drift apart. The poster was a response to the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 and appeared as a full-page artwork on the front page of The Canberra Times.HistoryOf his work 'Holding Together, Keeping Apart' David Pope discusses; "It's basically the great dichotomy isn't it, the great challenge we've got dealing with this virus. I was just trying to find an image that would encapsulate that - that we were all confined to our individual spheres, and that's a real problem because so much of our life doesn't work like that. "It's a sort of heaving wave that's coming through, too, in terms of the numbers affected by this thing, and we particularly see that in places like the US and Europe, and hope it doesn't overwhelm us and our systems. I didn't want an image that looks like we're going to be smashed or destroyed by this thing, but that we're just trying to tie ourselves together so that no one gets lost through it. That's the challenge."