I'm carrying out a series of 10 minute interviews with a range of people about their experiences of being or getting home and their sense of time and momentum during the virus crisis and lockdown. In particular, I have chosen to interview people who are making life-changing decisions during this time.
My first interview is with a young couple, Lucas and Ana. https://vimeo.com/428731156
During lockdown, Lucas and Ana were both furloughed from their jobs in London. They got a dog and decided to buy and live in a narrow boat instead of paying exorbitant London rents. I spoke with them on their third day of bringing their new home down the Grand Union Canal towards London, having never driven a boat before. They had just navigated through the Blisworth Tunnel, which is the third longest tunnel in the UK and the ninth longest in the world. ‘It didn’t go that well. We pingponged off the sides a bit! We have a lot of first times every day.’ They’d been through eight locks and had 70 more to go, when I spoke with them.
‘We wanted to rethink what we are doing with our lives,’ they told me. On the boat, everything has to be thought through: your use of water and gas, your disposal of waste. ‘Waste doesn’t just go down a drain. It’s nice to think about what we really need as humans. We are responsible for all the waste we leave behind us.’ Early in the lockdown, Lucas and Ana volunteered helping to provide hot food to people in need. ‘Our situation is very privileged. Volunteering, we met people who the government has left behind, people who hadn’t eaten for days, who are reliant on help that was community-led.’
