A new photography exhibition has aimed to show just that. Titled '2020 In the Bubble' the exhibition is set to open tonight at Turks Head Gallery in Albury.

Gallery director Dirk Wallace said the exhibition showed works from more than 50 Border artists capturing their varied experiences of last year.

"There's so many different versions of how people coped," he said.

"Some people told me they wanted to commit suicide last year, that showed bad it went for them.

"Other people said 'my life didn't change', others were that busy they didn't have time to worry about COVID-19, they were flat out at work.

"So its been lots of different stories."

Mr Wallace said last year was especially hard for photographers and people in the arts, including himself.

He said he'd opened the gallery in February last year, but then things took a downward turn.

"We had a great opening with three or four hundred people here," he said.

"We ran for a month, then COVID-19 hit and we closed for three months.

"We opened again in June, and two weeks after we opened, the Border blockade happened. It was mayhem for everybody in this area.

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"For me in particular, I had 40 or 50 police and army right outside my front door, there was nowhere to park for my customers, no one walked in for a long time.

"I got quite anxious coming to work and I got depressed...it was all very sad, i didn't really know what to do."

Mr Wallace said his friends, mostly photographers, went to ground.

"I barely heard from anyone and I thought we're all having a battle here, how are we going to get past this?" he said.

"I thought we need to do an exhibition of just what we did and have it heal us.

"That's the way I felt about myself, that I needed to be healed."

Despite the rough year, Mr Wallace said creating works for the exhibition was cathartic for many artists and it showed themes of resilience, community and positivity.

"Maybe it was a hard year and we all had a bit of anxiety and depression, we probably all still do," he said.

"It wasn't a bad year after all, simply because we coped, we got through.

"We don't have Coronavirus in Australia really, we're in a bloody good position."

The exhibition opens tonight at Turks Head Gallery from 5pm and will be on show until August 1.

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