During winter of 2020, Melbourne was caught in one of the most extreme COVID lockdown measures the world had seen. To stop the rampant spread of COVID-19, residents were instructed to stay home for a minimum of 23 hours each day and were only allowed to travel within a 5 kilometre radius of their home.
During that unprecedented time, an online film project was initiated between the VALID Banyule Darebin Peer Action Group, Jika Jika Community Centre and Watsonia Neighbourhood House. The project invited people to come together on Zoom and talk about the 1 hour walk we were allowed to do and to take a photograph of their favourite spot on that walk which was then used to inspire a conversation about what we love about the places in our community that are special to us.
VALID’s resident filmmaker, David Hansen then turned our Zoom conversations and our photographs into the Travels in a Lockdown World film which premiered at the Banyule/Darebin Peer Action Group Fantastic Flicks event on the 2nd of December as part of our International Day of People with a Disability celebrations.