Covid-19 UK Government Communication Vessels

I’d been on a family holiday to central Italy the previous summer (which has now attained a near mythical status in my memory) and the region we stayed in specialised in Majolica ware, which I completely fell in love with – those elegant shapes, the delicate patterns of swirls, tendrils, medieval faces and beautiful deep decorated borders captivated me.  

The rolling coverage of the pandemic on the radio coupled with my wistful thoughts of Italy combined to give me the idea to make a collection of medieval Albarello or medicine jars and tall, Italianate jugs with scrolled handles bearing the slogans that were constantly being hammered home by the UK government in Dominic Cummings’ inimitable punchy style: STAY AT HOME – PROTECT THE NHS – SAVE LIVES, coming through the radio and changing every now and then to a new, updated three phrase slogan.  Albarello jars often had the names of the contents written in Latin on the outsides (such as ‘Axung Hominis’, or, according to Google translate, ‘Man Grease’*) and I decided that I’d follow that tradition by Google translating the slogans into Latin; which also gave me the opportunity to poke a little fun at Boris Johnson’s florid communication style, peppered as it is with Latin phrases.  As the summer went on, the response of the Government seemed to be failing to keep up with events at times and the sense of chaos and unpreparedness is echoed in the increasingly hard to read lettering on my sets of Albarello jars – the final set shows my own lack of preparation where I run out of space to finish the words.  These are my attempts to visually echo this sense of unfolding chaos.   

The patterns on the three sets of 3 jars reinforce the context of these slogans – the first three, on a monochromatic, controlled, rather severe scheme of cobalt blue on white where we were all dutifully obeying the mantra ‘Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives’; then the second set (Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives’), where tumbling waves represent the sense of being buffeted by the peak of the virus and the borders of yellow and green are the borders on the daily briefing podium placards that had the slogans printed on them; and the third set of three (Wash Your Hands, Cover Your Face, Make Space) rather messily trying to recapture a sense of order and normality during last autumn’s brief pause before the second lockdown.    

The tall jugs and plates also bear phrases and sayings heard during those months.  Ranging from the simple and direct to the downright surreal, I selected my favourites and translated the ones for the jugs into the Prime Minister’s favourite Latin, again using Google Translate, and incorporated the results onto these traditional forms.  Ducitur Scientiam (‘Follow the Science’), Populi Plaudite Curante  (‘Clap for Carers’) and Firmamentum Bulla (‘Support Bubble’) all look rather mysterious and stately to me when translated into Latin.  I had a lot of fun Google translating ridiculous things and making them appear very clever during these months!  The plates all bear quotes from Johnson and various members of the cabinet last summer.  ‘Squash the Sombrero’ is a typically Johnsonian way of saying ‘flatten the curve’.  I decorated these plates using recognisably Majolica style devices such as script on curling ribbons and deep borders of peacock eyes and the two portraits are an echo of the portrait plates that were made to commemorate marriage in the heyday of Italian Majolica production.

*’Axung Hominis’ was written on an albarello jar I found on the internet whilst researching antique majolica ware.  Google Translate informed me that this meant ‘Man Grease’.  I assumed that this was the medieval Italian way of describing hand cream or body lotion… but a little more research revealed that no, it was actual ‘Man Grease’: the belief at the time being that wounds would heal up nice and quickly if rendered fat taken from a fresh corpse was applied to them.  Recently executed criminals were highly prized by the medical community for this and other reasons; the younger and healthier the corpse in life, the better.    

Katrin Moye, 02-08-2021 

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