Looking for Rainbows

It’s a clear, sunny Spring morning, like many in the weeks before. But the usually busy city street outside is eerily quiet, and the bustling pavement throng of people on their way to work has become the odd anxious-looking wanderer. It’s late March 2020 and lockdown in the UK has just started. For someone whose work typically focuses on trying to create lively, inclusive, people-friendly streets and public spaces that people enjoy walking through, meeting others or spending time in, the total absence of almost all people, bikes and even cars is surreal and slightly unnerving. 

There are silver linings however. The lack of car traffic - conspicuous by its thunderous absence, even in these early days, is leaving room to breathe. And not just the refreshingly clear air and gloriously loud birdsong. Without the speed, noise and often intrusive nature of high volumes of traffic, these local neighbourhood and city streets and suddenly deserted public spaces are opened up to alternative human uses too - and ones that are normally pushed to one side by their noisier, dominant peers. People are walking down the middle of previously busy roads, children are playing and chalking outside and I’ve never seen more cyclists of all ages up and down the city streets as part of their permitted ‘once-daily exercise’.

But it’s not all rosy of course. The enormous scale and tragic consequences of a global pandemic are also meaning that - amongst the obvious health, well-being and economic impacts and concerns - the places we usually socialise or see others in our community have been closed throughout the first months of lockdown. From playgrounds to outdoor cafes, from libraries to pubs. In these early days, even on the streets we aren’t bumping into neighbours or friends through the usual chance encounters, or seeing the strangers that constitute community members we don’t yet (and may never) know. Instead - except for essential journeys - we are all enclosed within our own four walls, peeking out at the world beyond. What does this mean for your sense of community, if even in public spaces - the places we usually ‘see’ a visual representation of our community, the people are largely absent? It made me consider a question.

How can you bring people together, when you can’t bring people together? 

Testing out ways to bring people together without bringing them together via street hopscotch before starting the rainbows project - see the full article about the hopscotch on the V&A website.

Pretty speedily, heartwarming tales of social initiatives bolstering a sense of connection and community spread. From balcony singing in Italy to renditions of ‘Sunshine Over Leith’ in Edinburgh, moveable street-based outdoor cinema screens for residents’ film nights, to - of course - the nightly NHS 8pm clap. Given these inspiring examples, I was left wondering whether there was anything - however small - that I could do to help promote social connection, a sort of community moral support or feelings of hope during what was set to be a long period of widespread societal anxiety, and at a time when it was hard to connect in person with those around you. 

Not being an essential ‘key worker’ or vital NHS staff, but wanting to do something - however small - to help, (and following on from starting this street hopscotch, now featured by the V&A), I was inspired by the simple joy that spotting a hand-painted rainbow in the city’s windows had started giving my toddler at a time when play parks, museums and nurseries were closed and she couldn’t see her friends. I decided I wanted to capture in some form and collate together these rainbows. A series that demonstrated a collective act of hope and community spirit and togetherness despite a mandatory ‘social’ distancing. 

For 6 weeks during the early, most intense period of UK Covid-19 lockdown of late March, April and early May 2020, I cycled around the city of Edinburgh on my rickety old bike taking photographs of these colourful, joy-filled, DIY pictorial messages of hope and human connection that were appearing in residential windows. In every photo I also invited the people who made the rainbow to feature. From small children creating rainbows as part of online-delivered school projects, to individuals wanting to show solidarity with their community visually in the street. In doing so, I met a huge range of wonderful people across the city, and at a unique time in history. 

The ‘Looking for Rainbows’ project - as I called it - was inspired by the hope that sharing these images of the people behind the closed doors and windows might make visible our community which was no longer so easy to see in person on the streets of Edinburgh. Alongside each photo is a caption from the people photographed, answering 3 questions: 1)  why they chose to create and share a rainbow in their window, 2) one thing they had learned from lockdown, and 3) a message of hope.  

I started with my neighbours via our newly set up WhatsApp group. With the first few rainbows on the website I started to ask more broadly across the city via Facebook groups and word of mouth. I was blown away by how many people asked to take part. I started cycling across the city every other day, from Wester Hailes in the west of Edinburgh to Portobello in the east, Granton in the north and Swanston to the south, and everywhere in between. From initially not being certain how many people would respond, I settled on a target of 100 rainbows. During lockdown I have been working remotely, whilst juggling childcare of a small toddler, so to be able to take photos of all these rainbows across the city I needed to work out a time-efficient way to do this. I began to cluster rainbows together, working out bike routes moving out from the city centre and back again that would take me to take photos of several rainbows in one trip on a cycling lunch-break or after work. 

As the days passed, I increasingly realised that whilst I had been hoping that this project might be a small morale-booster for others - sharing positive messages of hope and images of community with people across Edinburgh - actually it had been a gift to myself too. I discovered bike routes through parts of the city that I had never been to before. I met lovely people who had given up their time to be part of the project. We talked about how they were coping during lockdown, and what it meant to them and their daily lives. I also got to see some amazing creativity and the many different ways you can make a rainbow using the available materials in your home! Some people didn't have any paint at home but had still been amazingly creative -  making rainbows out of objects due for the recycling bin, others had used the colours of book spines or scarves. After taking each photo and uploading this to the Looking for Rainbows webpage and instagram, I also sent a high res version to those who had kindly given their time to be part of the project. Some families had rarely had photos taken with all of them in the photo, others said it would be a special memento to remember this unique time in history. 

I decided that I would stop at 100 rainbows. Aside from it being a nice round number and good target, reaching 100 rainbows also ended up aligning with when lockdown measures started to relax. This felt like the right time to stop. At the start of lockdown in late March, we were all still trying to figure out our new way of living - how it was going to work, what it would mean practically, how to connect with others. Panic buying and shortages of basic essentials, like toilet roll, were still happening. But by the end of May, things seemed to have shifted to a new normal, and with measures starting to relax. 

Jenny taking a photo of Rainbow 100 from the street below.

My wish for whatever comes post-lockdown (or hopefully with a widely accessible vaccine - ‘post-Covid’)  is that we learn from the last few weeks and months. We take some of the good things that happened in recognising how important community is, places to meet outside are, how much we value the NHS and all key workers, how wonderful it was to hear birdsong and be able to walk and cycle freely without traffic, and how a better future is possible. As one of the rainbow participants said in their photo caption, when the global coronavirus crisis started and things got really hard, one of the first things that happened was that hope and kindness bubbled to the surface. If we can hold onto that maybe we can together create a better future.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this project. You can view the full collection of rainbow photos and project page here. Longer term, once social distancing rules allow, I would like to hold an exhibition of all these rainbow photos showing a snapshot of lockdown in Edinburgh, in aid of charity Social Bite. I am also considering creating a book of all 100 rainbows. Get in touch to find out more.