Two years after the first UK lockdown, writers Shamini Sriskandarajah and Elodie Barnes reflect on how the restrictions (and opportunities) of Covid-19 have altered and shaped their creative practices.
In this moving and powerful piece, Author Ayo Deforge discusses bodily agency, freedom of choice and consent, and the French state’s unrelenting control over citizens’ bodies during the pandemic.
Unable to speak the same language, Leila Gamaz and her Algerian grandmother communicated through food. Here, Gamaz remembers their time cooking together and the meals savoured by all the family.
Reading about the life and friendships of artist Ida Nettleship John has given doctoral student, Eliza Goodpasture, comfort during lockdown and companionship when friends feel far away.
During her daily walks, Sammy Weaver has found connection with birds, bats and lichen. Here, she considers how Covid-19 allows for friendship and kinship with those who are ‘more-than-human’.
When her friend experienced the loss of a loved one, Alizah Hashmi was unsure how best to console her. In this personal essay, she reflects on how her friend’s loss helped her to realise that grief is unquantifiable, “infinite” and often comes without words.
In her third virtual dinner party of the year, Susanna Crossman invites translators and writers Saudamini Deo, Denise Rose Hansen, and Emma Rault to discuss different modes of translating, the fascistic notion of an “original” language, the work of Ann Quin and the ghosts behind translation.
As someone who was already fighting a life-threatening illness, Tomilyn Hannah was familiar with difficulties of social distancing and self-isolation. But lockdown gave her an opportunity to encounter the kindness of strangers, make new friends and be part of a new community.
Aysha Abdulrazak meets with entrepreneur and founder of Sugared & Sprayed, Shay Walcott, to discuss the ancient art of sugaring, speaking your hopes into existence, the beauty of black women and building an organisation that supports women of colour from the get-go.
In the first essay of her co-edited and co-conceived series, Disembodied Voices: Friendship during COVID-19, Sumaya Kassim reflects on the breakdown of a friendship, exploring feelings of abandonment, rejection and grief that led her to self-evaluate and cultivate new intimacy and care.
In the final postcard of her series, Rochelle Roberts reflects on the last few months since the first lockdown, and finds comfort and hope in the artwork of Somaya Critchlow and Dorothea Tanning’s Interior with Sudden Joy, 1951.
Homemade sees 17 acclaimed and upcoming filmmakers from around the world respond to the pandemic and quarantine experience during the first few months of lockdown.
