The Fiction Factory

Vaccine

The National Museum of Scotland is hosting a free exhibition called Injecting Hope – The Race for a Covid-19 Vaccine. It’s been five years since the UK went into its first lockdown, as we found ourselves into a global pandemic. The exhibition tells the story of that time and how less than a year after the initial cases of the virus, a vaccine became available, illustrating what vaccines are and how they move from the lab to mass production.

As I entered the exhibition space I was confronted with two video walls, depicting images from that time. It was a weird feeling, being in a museum and viewing something I had lived through so recently. Newspaper headlines, snippets of video, the image of a lone backpacker, masked up, crossing a deserted airport. It all felt so immediate yet at the same time, another lifetime. When I was walking through my town the other day I noted that there are still metal Covid-19 warning notices, fixed to lampposts, white lettering on a red background, reminding people to keep their distance. Some shops still have markers on the floor from this time, directing people where to stand and maintain a safe distance.

The exhibition was focused on the race to develop a vaccine, and how that was achieved. As a museum member I’ve been twice now, with the first time simply taking in the sounds and images and absorbing what I could in the short time I have over lunch. I then had time on the second visit to read all the notes and absorb the detail of the story of how the virus spread and how a vaccine was developed.

The exhibition notes that vaccination programs are nothing new. On display is a notice of compulsory vaccination for Smallpox in 1856. This became compulsory in Scotland in 1864 for all newborn babies. Towards the end of the exhibition is an audio recording taken from ‘I Remember’. This was created as part of Scotland’s Covid Memorial project 2022. Those that took part were asked to anonymously finish the sentence, ‘I remember…’ while thinking back on their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. I thought this particularly poignant, as it provides a collective memory of the shared experience. The quotes were read by the actor Robert Carlyle. (As an aside I met him many years ago on a flight back from Cannes, in the mid-nineties, but that’s another story).

On display towards the end of the exhibition there is a sculpture of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in glass by Luke Jerram 2021. The note beside it states it is a single nanoparticle, one million times bigger than the real thing. It was made to mark the ten millionth vaccination in the United Kingdom. As a piece of art it’s quite astonishing. The same can be said for the sculpture of the virus itself, The Sphere That Changed The World by Angela Palmer 2020 which is on display towards the beginning of the exhibition. It is over 8 million times the size of the actual coronavirus particle. As you circle around the work, it disappears from view, which reflects the elusive nature of the virus to world health. It’s been put together using dozens of very thin transparent sections with a gap in between each, so when you move to one end it is no longer visible. For something that proved deadly, it has a certain beauty that is difficult to put into words.

This exhibition stirred up many emotions, bringing to the fore of my mind, memories I had buried away. The displays not only brought into sharp focus what occurred with the lockdowns and how we had to navigate the new normal, but the effort by those scientists who worked to produce a vaccine that saved lives and helped us get back to something approaching normality. It is a fascinating display and for me highlighted the good humans can do when working together for the betterment of all.