While co-hosting Coronacast – the ABC podcast that helps answer questions about the coronavirus – Dr Norman Swan put out a call for children to record questions and send them in. And in they came. “[They were] “very cute and very moving”, says Dr Swan, the ABC health expert who has become something of a touchstone for the public in recent weeks with his clear, measured, scientific information about COVID-19.

Alice Mulheron, an ABC news producer, also sent Swan a couple of drawings made by the children of some of her friends. Inspired by how clever they were, Swan began thinking about initiating an art project that children could participate in during the coronavirus crisis.

Dr Norman Swan. Photograph courtesy of the ABC

“The first idea was to have an art competition but then I thought we don’t need another competition. Why not a properly curated kids’ art exhibition in the year of COVID? I have close links to the Art Gallery of NSW and they jumped on it and within four days or so had it all up and going,” Swan tells Limelight.

The online project, inspired by Swan’s suggestion, is called Together in...