In a matter of days, the COVID 19 pandemic has rapidly changed the world, South Africa has been placed on total 21-day lockdown and the university and its academic program placed on immediate hold. With this being said my submission dates will no longer be the 10 April 2020. My exhibition was scheduled for mid-May 2020, yet this date is now also up in the air as the gallery space was under renovation that was due to be completed by the end of April, this will no longer be the case. I am now worried as I do not know when or if having a physical exhibition will be a possibility.

On a positive note, the digital nature of my study does allow for alternatives.  In my dissertation, I discussed how I made use of alternative digital avenues to create all my work and the same could be done for an exhibition. I made a mock-up of my MFA exhibition on a site called “Artsteps”. The process of creating the virtual space was not difficult and only took me a couple of hours. I used a template of virtual industrial-looking exhibition space and began to curate the exhibition. The only issue I have is that video artworks or GIF artworks are not supported so I had to just use stills of the clips.

Although the software is not completely adequate. I enjoyed learning how to use it and opening my artworks up to another alternative space. This expense also helped me visually see how my works would look up in a physical space, which will aid me when curating the final MFA exhibition.

 The Virtual MFA Mockup exhibition can be accessed on: