Key workers to be honoured in exhibition

Saturday 29 August 2020

An exhibition honouring the key workers that kept the island going throughout lockdown will be opening next month.

Local photographer, Dasa Wharton, has spent the last few months documenting local workers for a project entitled: 'Portraits of Jersey in COVID-19'.

The collection aims to celebrate the endurance and strength of Jersey’s essential workforce who have continued in their roles throughout the pandemic despite the challenging working environment.

Pictured: Dasa Wharton, Czech-born freelance photographer.

Having completed the project, Dasa will display the work in a new public exhibition, due to open next month.

Starting from September, 'Portraits of Jersey in COVID-19' will be installed in three different outdoor locations across Saint Helier for 2-3 weeks each.

The exhibition, which is free to attend, contains 30 large-scale photographs of key and essential workers.

They’ve each been profiled with information about their experiences of working through the challenges of the past few months. 

As Jersey settles into Level 1 of the lockdown, Dasa hopes the exhibition will invite people to celebrate the resilience of Jersey's community spirit and the incredible measures that individuals and businesses continue to take to ensure the safety of all islanders.

Under normal circumstances, Dasa’s work focusses on dance photography

Her portfolio includes work for the English National Ballet, Ardani Artists and the Czech National Ballet. She is also a member of the The Royal Photographic Society.

 

 

 

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A post shared by Dasa Wharton (@dasaphotography) onFeb 7, 2020 at 12:19pm PST

Live dance events have been at a standstill since late March, however.

Dasa therefore turned her attention to Jersey’s local heroes.

"There are so many interesting and inspiring people in Jersey and I wanted to record, celebrate and share their work and their stories through my images," she explained.

 

 

 

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a huge amount of work is going on to bring " Portraits of Jersey in COVID-19" to the public, in the form of open air exhibition. Very excited to say that we secured the support of the Parish of St Helier , discussions about the best location are on the way.... an imporant step towards the dream was made today, when i collected the sample print of one of the exhibition images from Signtech CI - i am blown away by the quality of the print - thank you Signtech CI for your support and for becoming one of the partners of the exhibition. thank you Dercio from Vienna Bakery Jersey for being a wonderful model !

A post shared by Dasa Wharton (@dasaphotography) onJun 23, 2020 at 1:24pm PDT

Matthew Wilson, Director at Smith and Williamson said the company is “extremely proud to be a part of this project”, which depicts an “extraordinary time in global history and how it affects our way of life on this beautiful island" through "sensitive and seminal" portraits".

Dasa has also set up a Facebook page for the exhibition which can be found @portraitsofjersey.

Further details will be listed there, including updates about which locations the exhibit will be moving to between September and November.