The Duchess of Cambridge, this week, thanked the Photographers behind the amazing pictures submitted for the National Portrait Gallery’s Hold Still 2020 Project. The Duchess of Cambridge launched the ambitious artistic project in May this year with a hope to build a collective Portrait of the Nation during the lockdown.
The project was focused on three core themes – Helpers and Heroes, Your New Normal and Acts of Kindness. The final 100 images were selected from the more than 31000 submissions. Explore the full collection here.
The final pictures have also been displayed on billboards and poster sites in 80 towns and cities across the U.K. in a community exhibition. Kensington Palace revealed that the community exhibition that is closing soon received 5.2 million views. Did you miss any of the milestones during the project lifeline, Read all about it from it’s launch to the exhibition here.
Thanking the photographers, who clicked the pictures for the artistic project, The Duchess of Cambridge said,
I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone, who submitted an image to Hold Still. I launched the project with the National Portrait Gallery back in May because I wanted to find a way to allow everyone to share their stories and experiences of lockdown.
We have been thrilled by the response to the project and I couldn’t be more grateful to each and every one of the 31,000 people who submitted an image. It was so hard to select the final 100 photographs, but we hope we have created a collective portrait of our nation, reflecting on what others have experienced as well as our own journeys through this difficult time.
It has been fantastic to see these portraits on billboards and outdoor poster sites across the country as part of our community exhibition, and I’m hugely grateful to all our partners for helping us take the images back to the people and communities who took them.
For me, the most powerful part of the project is that it has shown just how much people and communities have come together and how important we all are to each other. Thank you so much for being part of Hold Still and for sharing your stories with the nation.
Earlier this week, The Duchess of Cambridge held a virtual call with Nurse Johannah Churchill, who captured her colleague Melanie as she worked to set up a COVID clinic in London. They were also joined by Dr Edward Cole who was involved in the setting up of COVID clinic.
The Duchess talked about the important role the photograph has played in helping to represent the experiences of frontline workers across the nation as they continue to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak. The image has led Johannah to receive messages from medical staff from across the UK, and around the world, and has allowed them to share their own experiences of working during these extraordinary times.
Melanie’s picture was one of the most famous pictures of the whole project and told the story of frontline workers who are fighting against the pandemic and their experience during COVID-19. The picture was displayed in a huge mural in Manchester, northwest England.
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From People’s report, “For her part, Churchill also told Kate how the image has led her to receive messages from medical staff from across the U.K., and around the world, and “has allowed them to share their own experiences of working during these extraordinary times,” Kensington Palace says.
In October, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited the Waterloo station to see the community exhibition and later on met with Joyce Duah, a specialist oncology pharmacist at the hospital at St.Barts Hospital. Find the exhibition nearby you here.
The year 2020 had been an extraordinary year of our life. And The Hold Still 2020 will always remain one of the most brilliant initiatives taken by the Duchess of Cambridge during the difficult period when the world did not know what is going to happen next. It builds a lasting illustration of life during the lockdown that will tell our coming generations a story of its own. Would you like to have a memento of the project or a poster for your own place, you can place an order here on National Portrait Gallery’s Online shop for £15.
For the video, The Duchess of Cambridge was wearing her red Zara Tailored blazer that we first saw in 2012.
The tailored single-breasted blazer features puffed shoulders and golden button closure.
In the virtual call, Catherine is wearing a frosted blue Boden Abercorn Scallop Cardigan. Thanks to Shannon Lea via Middleton Maven.
