Artwork created by Science Museum vaccine centre volunteer Claire Lewis-Smith of a radial design on card featuring signatures of vaccine centre volunteers, made London, 2021

‘I wanted to create something to represent the many people who contributed to the Science Museum’s vaccine centre. This piece reflects ‘our’ pandemic as lived by the volunteers who came from all walks of life in order to help.’

Claire was one of the volunteers at the Science Museum’s COVID-19 vaccination centre. Her role was as a patient data administrator while she was furloughed from her full-time job as an architect. Using 100 paper certificates from boxes of face coverings as her canvas, Claire created a design of concentric circles, each with their own colour to represent the different roles and teams at the vaccination centre. Yellow stood for clinical staff, purple was for administration, blue for vaccinators, and black for any others outside of those categories. Volunteers were invited to add their signatures to the appropriate area, with the overall ‘cog’ graphic intended to reference a functioning mechanism of contributing parts.

On right hand side are the logos of the Science Museum, NHS and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, who had responsibility for the centre. Representations of the COVID-19 virus and an example of the lot and expiry dates of a vaccine vial are also incorporated into Claire’s design.

After weeks of careful planning and installation, the NHS COVID-19 Vaccination Centre at the Science Museum first welcomed people to receive their COVID-19 vaccine on 11 March 2021. Run by NHS staff and volunteers, the clinic delivered over 100,000 doses to people until it closed in September 2021.