"We were approaching the year 2020 and I was already thinking that I should work on something different for the next decade at the gallery. Coincidentally, I am always looking for smaller artworks as my artists tend to prefer painting large scale and I never have enough smaller and more affordable Christmas gifts available. I thought Twenty Twenty ... 20x20cm in size... that will be an ongoing theme each year from 2020 straight to 2029.

That's what I did. A few days after the new year in January 2020 I made an international call out for artists to submit their works in 20x20 size. I thought 'since it's international, sending canvases can be costly for some artists' so I decided it would be just art on paper- easier to send. The deadline was set to 6 March 2020 and I received around 80 applications from Europe mainly. They were all so good but I had to downsize the number so I selected 50 artists and the winning entries each had to send us their work by mid-April as the exhibition was due to begin in May.

By that time, the world already knew of Covid and some countries were already suffering with high numbers of Covid cases. I remember that an artist from the Philippines had to eventually drop out as they had tight restrictions and he could hardly leave the house. Most artists had sent their artwork early but they were taking so long to arrive anyway. The exhibition would have never happened with most of the artwork not yet with us. The frames were here though. We had ensured we ordered enough frames for them.  That left us with only one option and that was to go ahead with an online exhibition in May. Everyone would still be in lockdown then.

My husband happened to be away in Ghana when Covid hit and although he was going to return at the end of March, he only managed to get on a flight back here sometime in July. There weren't many outgoing  flights available. The Maltese Ambassador there went through great lengths to find us a flight and when my husband finally arrived here, he had to quarantine which meant we were to quarantine with him if we lived together in that period. I wasn't going to let that happen once we finally had the freedom to go outdoors after all those months. My husband had the apartment to himself whilst we all moved in with my mother for two weeks.

I was at home managing with our three kids since March  - my then 15-year-old, my then 7-year-old and baby  who was only a few months old at the time. Once the Covid cases started to appear locally, my 15-year-old was studying for her O levels and celebrated her sweet 16th in lockdown whilst my 7-year-old girl was schooling online. I was experiencing great difficulties getting my 7-year-old to do work and that was when I realised that she must have learning difficulties. The previous year was when we just arrived back to Malta from our 1.5 years living in Ghana. We thought she would catch up with the school system here after some time but that didn't really work out, it seemed. Before lockdown, her teacher did notice something but we couldn't point at the issue and because of Covid, we couldn't follow it up. Covid made me realise, through home schooling, that the issue was much more serious than I thought initially. I was losing my mind - I didn't understand how simple equations couldn't get across through her. This had a toll on me. It took us over five hours a day to do some schoolwork. I didn't think anyone knew what I was going through then although after visits to an educational psychologist and an occupational therapist for a diagnosis, followed by months of therapy and one and a half years later, I am glad that this issue is now long gone and she has made so much progress. My baby boy was breastfeeding and enjoying all the time with us. He missed his dad who was also so happy when he returned nearly 5 months after he left Ghana in January.

Back to the online exhibition. It was good that we went along with it. It was great that I had already set up an online shop for the gallery before all this and people were now finally using it. I was selling and sending works abroad, or locally. Being home a lot more, it seemed like people were now investing in their homes, since they were spending less on holidays abroad or at restaurants. We still planned ahead for the actual 20x20 exhibition in October. By then businesses were able to open again and most of the artwork would have eventually arrived. Planning the show actually gave me something to look forward to in my otherwise monotonous daily routine and life with Covid.

I can't say I disliked the change brought about by Covid-19. I was finally spending more time at home, I was enjoying cooking as I had more time to prepare interesting meals, making use of everything I had in my cupboards and in the fridge/freezer more efficiently. I was actually more appreciative of the circumstances we were in. A year before the pandemic hit we were leaving the place we called home for eighteen months in rural Ghana. Life in Ghana was a great experience but thinking about the scorching heat in that dry climate and the frequent 'dumsor', irregular and unpredictable electric power cuts, I couldn't imagine myself living through the pandemic in that sub-Saharan climate. It's a privilege for us to be living in the west whilst countries close to the equator suffer the consequences of global warming.

Upcoming exhibition poster  

I am currently curating an exhibition which will take place at Christine X Curated/ Christine X Art Gallery in Tigne street, Sliema from 22 April to 13 May 2022. It's called ANTHROPO SANS FUTURE.  The selection of artworks for this exhibition with works by Chris De Souza Jensen (aka Seapuppy), Darren Tanti, Kevin Attard, Mario Abela and Rupert Cefai show this untimely influence of humans on climate and the environment, questioning how humanity plays part in the ecological downfall which finds society guilty of robbing from future generations for their own short-term economic gain."