How to Mend the Brokenness? Some Solace during COVID-19 Part II
/This is part II of an unfolding mini-series trying to provide some starting points to reimagine futures, provide solace and at least start somewhere. If you want to contribute find the form here>
WHAT GAVE YOU SOME SOLACE LATELY? SHARE BOOKS, POEMS, PODCAST EPISODES... SHARE RESOURCES YOU FOUND HELPFUL AND MIGHT HELP OTHERS
*I absolutely loves this sort of exhibition “Die Balkone : Life, art, pandemic and proximity. Prenzlauer Berg windows and balconies” initiated by Övül Ö. Durmusoglu and Joanna Warsza in Berlin. The concepts is: “Die Balkone invites members of the artistic community living in Prenzlauer Berg to activate/inhabit their windows and balconies. With zero budget, no opening, and no crowds, the project proposes an intimate stroll (within current regulations) to search for signs of life, art, and points of kinship and connection. When some of us are cut off from our plans and our loved ones, we reach out to the balconies of the world, against isolation and individualization, not leaving everything in the hands of the virus and the fear it generates.” You can find lots of impressions and images on the facebook event page.
Sandra Coumans: "A cliché one: I took time to do some baking and cooking (have tried out new recipes for all sorts of bread, savory and sweet dishes); Technique critique on pandemics by Wired; and then also staying off the internet and also doing/ reading/ watching something completely unrelated to the virus and quarantine! Exhibitions, performances, etc are still experienced best in a live setting, so have not embarked much on that. Films and videos, however, yes! Have been listening to a Dutch-language podcast called 'Future shock', which explores current developments (not necessarily C19-related)."
What or who is helping you to cope during these times?
Elisa Bailey: “Physically, my boyfriend is here in confinement with me so I am endlessly grateful for that- I don't cope well alone.
Mentally- knowing all my far-away friends are out there, even if we catch up properly only once during this period, it might be more than we do when caught-up in our old normal lives. Also knowing that my parents and loved ones are taking lockdown seriously and I don't have to worry constantly about them slipping up!
Otherwise, having time to work on my own projects which means I wake up excited every day about realising some of the things I have dreamt about getting underway for a long time! It finally feels I have been given a moment to take my own path for a while, even though I am very aware that this 'chance' is nonetheless a by-product of what for so many people is a catastrophe."
Sandra Coumans: “It was important to me to have an idea about what was happening (how the virus functions and spreads), but also not to overload myself with information, statistics, articles. What also helped me cope is to realise that it is a completely natural thing, it is part of life, it has happened before and it will happen again (although hopefully NOT in the near future, haha..). And just thinking about what could be a good way to cope, especially in the long-term and more generally than just this specific situation, has been important to me. I've been thinking about resilience lately as I wrote here>”
What have you learned through this mess?
Elisa Bailey: “Everything should always and unequivocally be considered with regard to the people. Everything possible should be tried before all that is left is hope.
Some people show their true colours in times of emergency, whether good or bad.”
Sandra Coumans: “As I have my own consultancy and I work transnationally, I know what it is like to work from home and at a distance. In that sense, it was not such a big switch (and the quarantine, also the comparison with colleagues/ practitioners have made me aware of that. What I do miss is traveling, being in direct touch with friends and practitioners, experiencing art. I actually feel worse for those living in tiny apartments, with many people, those that find themselves out of work from one day to the next; and I feel very grateful for all those people more or less obliged to continue working in at-risk circumstances: health care professionals, the police, public transport personnel, supermarket employees, etc.”
How did this situation affect your work and what have you learned?
Elisa Bailey: “I lost my job very early on in the crisis (I worked in cultural travel, and obviously nobody is moving very far these days!) so I am learning to think of ways I might be able one day to earn a proper living without having to rely on employers, and in the meantime looking into small bits of remote work that will help pay the rent, such as translation and research. I have recognised that I probably don't want to work for a small, family company again (unless it is my own!), as even if the good times are good, the bad times feel a lot worse.” [Update: Elisa has been offered a job in the meantime and I’m really happy for her]
*I really enjoy the podcast “In other words” hosted by Charotte Burns. In her latest episode #78 Covid-19 is Exposing the Fault Lines she talks to Allan Schwartzman (co-founder of AAP and a chairman of Sotheby’s) about the impact of Covid-19 on the art world: “Charlotte Burns: […] I was speaking to a dealer this weekend. He was saying, “The truth is that everyone has been miserable, and we just didn’t know how to talk about this. So, we talked about expand, expand, expand,” which is to your point. And another dealer was saying that they have like-minded friends, they want to work differently. They’re talking about doing things differently. Whether that’s extracting themselves from real estate in cities where the property market is going to be completely different after this. So, I think a lot of people are reevaluating their real estate decisions, too.
To your point about artists, one dealer was saying to me that they actually are having a lot of people still asking for artists, but that with things being the way they are, that artists who have a larger production—they have studios and they employ people—they’re not working on those productions anymore. And so, even in the sense of what artists can do, if you’re running a major operation: that’s not running right now. You’re not an essential worker.
And so, it’s also affecting the scale and scope of production: paintings for this biennale, for this art fair, for this museum exhibition. That pressure to produce all of that, the tap has turned off. And so, I wonder how that’s going to affect the art making itself, because the artists, like all of us, they’re in a different production cycle.”
Sandra Coumans: "I luckily have been able to continue working and earn money! What that taught me is that I have apparently made some right choices along the way. This is a completely individual assessment: I am not saying that if you're now not earning anything, you have made the wrong choices; I have just done some things that were right for me. It also looks like I will be able to continue working for the time being.
The one advantage about conferences and meetings switching to online presence is that they are accessible without having to travel (and even at the moment you choose)."
Heather Havrilesky has shared shares some useful advice for working from home in this twitter thread. Like: “Use late afternoon for phone calls and texting with friends. Don’t underestimate how much random chatting and short periods of connecting with others will improve your overall well-being. If you can get out and walk while talking, all the better.”
Writer Austin Kleon shares from his book Keep Going in his blog post “Working from home manual in disguise” some really helpful additional advices like: “Demons hate fresh air. Walking is good for physical, spiritual, and mental health. 'No matter what time you get out of bed, go for a walk,' said director Ingmar Berman to his daughter, Linn Ullmann. 'The demons hate it when you get out of bed. Demons hate fresh air.'”
This twitter thread is something for the sad museum chronicles and important to archive to remember when these museums talk about community next time:
What have you been learning about community?
Elisa Bailey: "This is a big question I am thinking a lot about, and perhaps don't have immediately clear (and this could also have changed a lot by the time confinement ends!)...
Simply, community has always been there- it's just a matter of finding it, participating in it and allowing/ helping it to be an incredible force for individual and collective good. But it shouldn't be abused- I think it's really easy to call someone just to be able to speak to 'someone' - anyone- out of loneliness or boredom (particularly the people who you think will always answer). Even if these are very different times, we should still respect one another --and one another's time, energy, emotion and affections --enough so that we make contact because we want to speak to/see/hear from that person specifically. In this way, some people I know have said they are overwhelmed and exhausted by the explosion of communications and people writing to them/phoning/inviting them to chat. Embracing and valuing your community is just as much about understanding how those members who are more shy, busy or introverted (or even extroverts wanting a quiet day!) may feel connected without wanting to communicate large amounts. Just because people might behave or process things differently, doesn't mean they are not part of a greater communal spirit.
In terms of society and peripheral members of our social networks, this is another lesson that not everyone shares the same opinions as you and not everyone is dealing with things in the same way, or necessarily even always thinking of others in their actions. Eeven if we might think that our whole friendship group/city/country/world should surely be united as a greater community against something so undiscriminating in its victims as a virus pandemic... we have been proved wrong. Everything about the COVID-19 pandemic is political and socio-economic, and so I'm not sure that there are so many silver linings for communities in the larger sense of the word, and as for communities as networks of individuals, i think the feeling of community may simply have been accentuated briefly."
Sandra Coumans: “Radical change is possible, but we need to want to!”
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* My answers
