Historic England Commission - reveals COVID 19 affect on BAME community.

Anand Chhabra was commissioned by Historic England to document the effects of COVID-19 for 7 days. He was chosen as one of 10 regional photographers all working under social distancing regulations. This meant at the time of the commission Anand could only photograph within a radius of 500 meters of his home - and then only submitting a single image to Historic England at the end of each day.

The most revealing aspect for Anand was the unintentional way his photographs began to reveal how the disease was affecting those from the BAME community. Anand’s photographs the extent at which people were impacted by the pandemic. Jaminder Singh, for example, who had just had major heart surgery was forced to go to his local supermarket, 200 meters from Anand’s home in Wolverhampton, fully clad in PPE. A couple of days later Anand photographed at the allotments near his home and took a portrait of Jenny Mclean a Jamaican lady who had lost her best friend of 33 years. She spoke to Anand about being at the funeral the day before which she described as an emotionally sickening event for her.

Anand Chhabra’s photos from the Historic England commission feature (inset centre) in Daily Mirror’s report on the effect of COVID-19 on BAME communities.