This pentaptych is a reportage on some of the mental health challenges experienced by a person permanently living on an English canal boat during Covid-19 lockdown.
These composite images are a selection from a larger body of work, my published illustrated anthology of poems, “Nowhere to Go” (June 2020). In that I offer a visual and prose narrative, with empathy and intimacy, on the physical and psychological impact of Covid-19 lockdown on boat people.
The sombre mood of lockdown is represented by the darker mono tones used in the images. The visual transitions in the images, from clarity in the centre to a blurred obscurity on the edges, indicate how the boater’s mind drifts from reality to a graver and worrying expansive dream space, repeatedly.
