#massisolationFORMAT
Every picture tells a story, what's yours?
About this project
A giant photo mosaic was created by the People’s Picture and unveiled at QUAD Derby as part of the #massisolationFORMAT project at FORMAT21 International Photography Festival, installed at Quad, Derby. 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 90+ countries, sharing people’s experiences living through a pandemic.
Featured photos
Timelapse
The Lovers photo mosaic has been produced in four ambitious conceptions for FORMAT21: an online interactive 180 giga pixel zoomable image hosted by Micrio; an online multiplayer exhibition; a giant public space vinyl print installation produced by Prolific Graphics at QUAD in Derby and a physical exhibition featuring curated friezes at Derby Museum and Art Gallery.
In the news
The Straits Times | 2025
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The Guardian | 2025
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ArtDaily | 2021
'QUAD launches FORMAT International Photography Festival'
Derbyshire Times | 2021
'FORMAT21 explores response to Covid pandemic'
BBC World Service | 2021
'Listen to Louise Fedotov-Clements'
FORMAT | 2021
International Photography Festival
British Journal of Photography | 2021
'More Expansive than ever before'
Explore our projects
Explore our projects
FORMAT International Photography Festival was established in 2004 and is the UK’s leading international contemporary festival of photography and related media. It organises a year-round programme of international commissions, open calls, residencies, conferences and collaborations in the UK and internationally and welcomes over 100,000 visitors from all over the world to its biennale. The festival and off year programmes celebrate the wealth of contemporary photographic practice and feature everything from major conceptual works, participative projects, documentary photography, mobile phone imagery to the archive and all that falls between. We are concerned with what is happening now in the scene and beyond, whilst sharing and contributing to it. FORMAT is the place to engage with an incredible range of work from new and emerging photographers alongside that of some of the best-known practitioners in the world. FORMAT is focused on developing opportunities for audiences to see, debate, develop, contribute and participate in the best of what photography is and can be, through our comprehensive professional practice programmes and a yearly international photography portfolio review.
“[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
“It has been quite a challenge because we pushed what we are doing to its technical limits, I spent many days and hours on problem solving but it was a brilliant testing ground for our collaborative virtual software. The content is complex and interesting and the final image of the Lovers which is an intimate and forbidden image, which seems to chime perfectly with our collective hopes and desires.”
Helen Marshall | Artist | The People’s Picture