Lockdown Reflections from Young Creatives

ERIC Presents: the transcript from the Late at Tate Britain audio experience

Intro from Mae

Hi everyone, I’m Mae and I’m one of the founders of ERIC. This month, we created an audio experience for you around the Late at Tate Britain theme, so we actually asked some of our ERIC community to send in voice notes to us about what they wish they’d done differently and what they think they’ve learnt from the last six months. It’s been a really interesting window into what it’s like to be a young creative, especially in this bizarre time. You may even well find some solidarity or reassurance from the comparisons or similarities of your own circumstance. As I mentioned, this is audio only so, you know, you’re more than welcome to turn up the volume and listen to it from afar. So if you want to go get a drink or put the kettle on, do so because for the next 10 minutes you don’t have to watch the screen. So here it is and I hope you enjoy.

Voice note 1

Oooh, one thing that I wish I’d done differently in the last six months during the lockdown will have to be picking up a new skill. Like, I feel a lot of people have absolutely transformed and I don’t think I have in something that I can tangibly say that I’ve now done, so like a lot of people have just all of a sudden become runners or like are baking or are making like, fresh ginger beer… and just all these new different skills. Um, however I will say I think I’ve become more open-minded so that’s definitely the best thing to come out of the last six months — I’ve become more open-minded and more… analytical and kind of the things I do.

Voice note 2

Hey, uh, this is Sam. The one thing you wish you had done differently in the last six months. Hmm. I would say that since I was living alone during a pandemic… um… and also I was living alone for the first time away from my family it was a really rough time, and I feel that I was suffering from depression and it was not the best time for my mental health… and something I would have done differently is the fact that I should have accepted the pain that came with it and embraced it more instead of running away from it or victimising myself that why is it happening with me. And the best thing to come out of the last six months would be that during those… um… during that hard time when I was suffering from depression I was able to write a script for a show that is now being shot. The first episode is called eyes — a little a little self-promotion. So yeah, that’s that’s my story.

Voice note 3

I’d say the one thing I wish I could differently in the last six months is stress less. Like I constantly felt like I was on a knife edge because I didn’t have a job at the time. I was constantly looking, constantly stressing, constantly throwing myself into things to do and it got to a point where it’s like… I realized, I’m not enjoying myself, I’m just stressing. like I was just constantly angry. I was constantly worried as well and anxious and… every negative feeling you could imagine. So the one thing I’d say, I just I just wish I just… calmed down I’d say.

Voice note 4

My name is Angel and um, six months onwards I feel like now I’ve been able to promote my brand, going to online webinars seminars all of them and being able to market my brand. Six months ago I never… was able to if I made sense because I just was really not bothered it wasn’t something I was keen on but since locked down it’s really made me focus on myself and, yeah.

Voice note 5

Hi my name is Kingsley and this is my voice note. Hey everyone hello, how you guys doing? Um… in terms of the past six months, if there’s something I wish I could have done differently in the past six months would have been to save a lot more money and been able to put more money into my… projects, everything I was working on so… the projects, one of the projects i was, i’m working on what i have been working on is my podcast called Kingz Corner. Another thing I feel like I wish I could have done differently in the pa- in the last six months would have been to see more of my friends. Yeah… I didn’t get to see my friends as much and it wasn’t necessarily a good, a great goodbye because this year I was a graduate so I didn’t really get to see a lot of my friends off when they graduated too. It was hard, it was hard, but that’s one thing I wish I could have done differently but in terms of the best thing that came out of this six months is the fact that being cooped up during lockdown, I learned a lot about myself, I learned a lot. Um, I learned how to just keep my mind under control and you know I really discovered a lot more, um, areas to my mentality that I didn’t really know about beforehand so you know just being able to add I found a new level of composure and patience… and yeah, thank you for listening.

Voice note 6

One thing I wish I did differently over the last six months was definitely improve on my photo and video editing skills because right right right at the start of quarantine I was definitely watching a lot of videos because I was bored and I just wanted to kind of have something to do inside the house since I wasn’t allowed outside so, I did pick up a few things but then as time progressed I literally stopped doing it and now I’ve started my new job and I’m having to relearn everything again and again and again and that’s just like ‘oh I wish I had just done it in the first place!’ so that I could go into work and just be like ‘pow pow pow pow pow!’. I could just do everything but um… it’s okay we live, we move, we learn, I guess everything happens in its own time.

Voice note 7

The best thing to come out the six months (apart from obviously the rest — I got a lot of the rest that I needed or I felt like I needed!) was also at the end of around Julyish or maybe the start of July… sometime in July anyway, I joined this group. It’s a group for girls in East London, we get on zoom calls twice a week, we do different activities, we talk to each other about like, what we’re doing. We were all unemployed at the time and it was kind of like all about the job process and how we’re going to get jobs and that was the most productive thing I did, because once I was motivated by people around me that were telling me ‘yep you’re good’, like, ‘go and do this’ and giving me different types of opportunities then I could really get started… um… start my motivation to go back on the job search again. I did that and now, as of like last week, I got a new job. So that was the best thing that came out of lockdown you just do all these new things — well, I did this one new thing that I hadn’t done before with these new people that I never met and that was good for me.

Voice note 8

Relationships with people change when you can’t see them as much or in these locked down Covid situations. And the one relationship in particular that I think changed the most was the one with my current boyfriend. Um, we actually broke up for a little bit and it was because of like his mental health, my mental health, because of the whole lockdown situation — it was just like too much for the both of us. But I think, well — we obviously came back together or I wouldn’t be saying this — but I think it was the first time I’d ever realised that I truly love someone because I came- we came back together and everything just got better and we realised that we can handle a lot more than we think and I think to any couples that can handle this sort of pandemic and who have made it out stronger or just even slightly better than they were before with all of these extenuating circumstances and people’s mental health and jobs and money and all this stuff that’s going down… if you can still be with somebody and truly love and care about them and if you can get through a pandemic your love can last longer than you think. So I would say it’s probably the best thing that’s come out of it. I found like, my best friend and I feel like I’m truly in love, as cliche as it is but… I’m pretty grateful for that in a sense so, yeah.

Thank you from Mae

Thanks so much for listening everyone and a huge thank you to all our amazing community who took part sharing their thoughts so a quick shout out to Afia, Angel, Bimbola, Devyn, Kingsley, Krystal, Maya and Sam and thank you to ETRNL who compose the music that you guys have heard throughout and if you’d like to find out more about what we do at ERIC you can follow us on instagram at @ericfestival or head over to our website at www.meet-eric.com.