Viruses

Jo Dixey, a professional needleworker, made this group of ‘viruses’ during New Zealand’s Alert Level 4 lockdown in the 2020, following the global outbreak of the coronavirus Covid-19.

The collection materialises the unseen, and reflects one person’s need to understand the virus through the therapeutic and often compulsive practice of making.

Visualising the virus

New Zealand went into Level 4 lockdown at 11.59pm on 26 March 2020. On the 29 March, Jo Dixey posted her first completed ‘virus’ on her instagram account @dixeysoul, against a microscopic picture of the actual Sars-CoV-2 virus. The microscopic images of the virus showed the club-like spikes on the surface of the virus. These are what gives the corona virus its name – corona meaning 'crown'. Most corona viruses – including SARS and MERS – share a bump-covered spherical appearance. During the lockdown, Jo fashioned 26 spikey viruses, using a variety of materials found in her studio, and techniques.

After making her first ‘virus’ from fabric, Jo safely contained it in a jar, which she aimed to continue filling with more viruses. After making her second ‘virus’ using buttonhole stitch in bright red thread, she admitted she was getting obsessed, and promised that once she had filled the jar she would stop. Her third ‘virus’, made from wire and pearls, turned out to be a mutant virus, collapsing in on itself. Number 9 was ‘smaller but more sinister’, number 16, fashioned from a scrap of black leather, was ‘punk’. For number 18 she made a virus and an antibody, which domes on and off.

Although she had filled her jar by 23 April, she kept going, making a ‘pretty’ virus from scraps of Liberty fabric, and another from copper and pearls. On the 26 April, she confessed that ‘the virus making really is out of control’ - she was meant to be completing work for a forthcoming exhibition. At number 26 she felt she had cracked it saying ‘I think this one really looks like a virus’.

Following New Zealand’s move to Alert Level 3 at 11.59pm on 27 April, Jo Dixey’s compulsive desire to materialise the virus began to wane – ‘I seem to not have the need to make any more. Maybe because we have moved down a level and life is slowly returning to some kind of normal’.

Jo Dixey

Jo Dixey is a freelance needleworker and teacher from Suffolk, England. She studied at the Royal School of Needlework in London (1991-94), and emigrated to New Zealand in 2000. As well as pursuing her own creative work, she undertakes a wide range of commissions including work for the film and fashion industries.