How I managed being a south Asian creative during lockdown

By Mathushaa Sagthidas

COVID-19 has impacted so many of us in various straining and draining ways (and this is the understatement of the century), but something that I wanted touch on and acknowledge is the impact that COVID-19 has had, and is still having, on various creatives and artists within the UK. I'm Mathushaa Sagthidas, a London born and based creative fashion photographer and stylist, that is strongly influenced by my identity - Tamil ethnicity and British nationality. For me it's important and inspiring to take forward these aspects of my identity and childhood into my fine art, contemporary fashion and styling practices.

Before I share how I adapted my creative process for COVID, I wanted to start off by speaking about my work. Surprisingly I didn’t have any interest for photography and I especially did not consider taking it forward as my degree until I actually took part in this one-week photography workshop I had to do for school, a part of work experience in the sixth form. At the time I took part in this experience because it was the only creative opportunity available. It wasn't something that I was even looking forward to because I was so caught in fine art, where a lot my work at the time was installation based and full of collaging and sculpture. However, after an enjoyable experience I had at the photography workshop, I felt really confused in terms of what I wanted to study at university, especially growing up in a stereotypical south Asian household where you are expected go to university straight after finishing school. But I chose to think about myself and not make any rushed decisions as I knew that I wanted to have a creative career path but was unsure in what sector exactly. For me, a foundation year was the perfect length of time and way by which to figure what I wanted to study within the creative industries, especially the type of photography that I wanted to specialise in; and this is where I discovered my interest in fashion photography after studying fashion promotion and I haven’t looked back since.

Despite finally figuring out what I wanted to study as my degree, I felt limited in what I could and was allowed to create, especially when it involved possibly creating work reflecting my identity. From what I remember, I actually started to create work revolving around my identity after I took part in a teen tour with the photographers' gallery in London, talking about an artist's work reflecting war. It was something that I could relate to and understand to some extent due to my parents' history with the Sri Lankan civil war, which led to me creating my first project surrounding this topic during my A-Levels. Despite being born and raised in London, this project just sparked an interest and passion in my Tamil culture and heritage, especially growing up and being influenced by my culture since I was a child. However due the environment that I was in, I didn't always feel like I allowed to explore this part of my identity through art until my second year of university. I had spent a lot of time trying to create more to ensure that I was doing well in terms of my education but it wasn't work that I felt passionate about or proud of. So finally creating work surrounding my Tamil culture and lifestyle, something that I care about and is important to me has definitely changed and improved my creative process, but it is also empowering to create something that other south Asians, especially Tamil creatives and people, can understand and relate to.

However, the pandemic hit in my second year during my Easter holiday so we did have the time to get our head around the idea of going from teaching in person to being taught online, but for me personally it felt irritating that I was finally in a place where I was happy with the work that I was creating and then feeling limited in how to grow this progression. At the time, from what I remember it was really strange and uncomfortable knowing that so many people, you don't expect to, would see the inside of your home. But once I got past this idea my priority was getting my head around how I was going to produce work that represented my style and what I'm passionate about whilst ensuring I'm creating the best standard of work. During the first lockdown and university, I was quite stressed with the idea of not being able to do shoots with models and having to adapt. But I decided to just create in a different way and take forward more of my fine art practices, such as sculpture, stitching and collage to rework photos that I have taken in the past few years. I also started looking into and exploring south Asian inspired still life shoots with props that I managed at home. Looking back on these experiences, some of the work I've created wasn't the best however it was definitely a learning curve and a process to improve from and figure out on how to create work without models.

Nevertheless, in London during the summer, things were a bit more relaxed and the cases weren't as high and the only rule we had to follow in terms of gatherings was the rule of six. So, with the few shoots that I managed to do over summer I did my best to work with models that I was seeing consistently and to be honest really enjoyed working with. I also spread out my shoots so they weren't that frequent and what was great about everyone I worked with, is that we were quite cautious and kept everyone updated in regards to our health. However as this was the summer before my third year, I also chose to take the time to focus, develop and complete my dissertation. I surprisingly enjoyed writing it, especially as it was a chance for me to touch on a topic that I care about - south Asian representation within the media and this process also sparked an interest in writing for me. As we are in another lockdown currently, writing has been something that I didn't expect to develop through blog and article writing, but it is also definitely a really useful skill that I don't regret exploring.

Some advice that I would give to help any struggling creatives is:

Take this time to explore and experiment with ideas that you have thought about. So for me I chose to work on my product photography and still life skills to improve this further but it was also something to add to my portfolio.

In terms of university as a creative, it's quite frustrating that we don't have the same access to certain practical resources and have to adapt somehow and the majority of my work going forward is more likely going to involve more still life work - looking for inspiration on Pinterest and Instagram has really helped develop these ideas forward. There is also more fine art based practical skills such as lino printing by hand that I have also started exploring as well. Also being able to adapt and managing creating work in general in this is also a skill itself.

I’ve also written a short blog post talking how I've kept creative during the pandemic with more tips here.

Feel free to see more of my work on my socials:

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/mathuxphotos

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mathuxphotos/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/mathuxphotos