May 4, 2020
I’M WRITING THIS as a small shift begins to unlock the wheels of the Italian economy – the country has been in total lockdown since March 9. My front door is open, the sun is shining, the birdsong is loud and amazingly, an enormous swarm of bees has just flown by. A dark cloud that hummed so loudly that I thought a big, slow-moving tractor was driving past.
When I left Penang mid-February to fly to Italy, exhausted after readying the artworks for various exhibitions planned for the now-cancelled Open Studios Penang, I was already acutely aware of the country’s surging Covid-19-related cases.
But I had an art show planned in the UK at the beginning of May, and had to set up my studio. So on February 14, I kissed my husband David goodbye and boarded the plane to Italy. It was busy on both flights from Penang to Doha, and from Doha to Milan. I had with me a face mask and hand sanitiser, but I worried that only two or three passengers had their masks on. Did everyone else not know that a virus was taking hold?
My concerns were concretised when we landed the next day. Arriving at the Milan Malpensa Airport, our temperatures were taken by hazmat-suited personnel. I collected the rental car and drove to my house in Piedmont, stopping on the way at a supermarket to buy enough food supplies for the few days I was to be in Italy.
