Each blue dot in this graphic represents one of the 4,175,753 people who have contracted Covid-19 in the UK between 23 March 2020 and 23 March 2021. Each black dot making up the text represents each of the 126,172 people who contracted and have lost their life to Covid-19 in the same period.
The text is taken from the poem 'No Man is an Island' by John Donne, a poem about how important human interaction is for our well-being... given the last 12 months something about that seemed important. I wanted to create something that would visually show the sheer amount of people that had been directly affected by the virus (not even getting into families of each dot on this picture, or everyone who has been impacted by it in other ways) over the last year. The final part of the poem which I took is essentially saying that when the church bell tolls for someone who has died, it is tolling for you too as you are part of the same society. The death of others is something that seems to at times have been lost a little as the year has gone on. We seem to have become desensitised to the fact there are people behind the ever increasing numbers on news reports.
I am making this available as a print on my website (https://www.matthillman.co.uk/prints/no-man-is-an-island) and all profits from sales will go to the Healthcare Workers Foundation charity which supports the physical, mental and day-to-day needs of all NHS staff, from doctors and nurses to cleaners and porters.
No man is an island entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
