DERBY.- This week a giant photo mosaic has been unveiled on the outside of QUAD in Derby as part of the #massisolationFORMAT project at FORMAT21 International Photography Festival.

Created and produced by The People's Picture for FORMAT21, the photo mosaic is composed of a total of 180,574 photos from the exhibition #massisolationFORMAT.
#massisolationFORMAT was inspired by the 1937 Mass Observation project, FORMAT invited people to use the hashtag #massisolationFORMAT to create a visual record of the Covid19 crisis on Instagram. This mass-participation project, set up at the beginning of the March 2020 lockdown, received over 40,000 photo submissions from over 90 countries, sharing people’s experiences living through a pandemic. The images came from a wide range of people – photographers, professionals, amateurs, members of the public – and came together as a large scale photo mosaic to commemorate this moment in history, and celebrate our collective emergence into the ‘new normal’.

The photograph Lovers was shot by Argentian photographers Luisa Magdalena and Nahuel Alfonso and inspired by Renè Magritte’s painting Les Amants.

"[Lovers] was selected to be the focal point to unite the huge selection of images, encapsulating the feeling of hope that so many of us have clung to over the past year and gives us a glimpse into the intimacy, friendship, laughter and love that is awaiting us as we begin to exit the pandemic." - Louise Fedotov Clements, FORMAT Director

Lovers is selected from over 40,000 images as the focus image for the #massisolationFORMAT giant photo mosaic to be presented at the FORMAT21 international photography festival.

The Lovers photo mosaic will be produced in four ambitious conceptions for FORMAT21: a giant public space vinyl print installation at QUAD in Derby and a physical exhibition featuring curated friezes at Derby Museum and Art Gallery an online interactive 180 giga pixel zoomable image and on an online multiplayer exhibition.

The Lovers photo mosaic appears as a giant outdoor print wrapped around the outside of QUAD, Derby’s centre for contemporary art and film. The mosaic has been produced and installed by vinyl specialists Prolific on to high quality durable exterior vinyl. The production of the giant mosaic in its digital and print presentations has been organised and overseen by The People’s Picture.

The project #massisolationFORMAT has been produced by Louise Fedotov-Clements, Niamh Treacy and Debbie Cooper from FORMAT/QUAD with support from Janine Derbyshire, Jonny Hill, Laura Phillips, Derby Museum and Art Gallery and Paul Lowe, Brigitte Lardinois, Oisín Davies, LCC/Photography and the Archive Research Centre. With thanks to: Derby City Council; Claire McDougall, Mark Richards, Prolific Graphics; Arts Council England; The Art Fund.