By Alice Burden

 

Corona, lock-down and creativity 

 

At the end of the day on Friday, Marc gave us a talk about what might happen with the current coronavirus outbreak, and how the school will deal with it.

 

He said we should be prepared to not see each other for months and obviously this raised a lot of questions. The school has put into place a strong strategy for how the school will run; we’ll be working digitally, using a site called Wiip and other various conference calling programmes. But many of the things we wanted to know about were trivial and impossible to answer.

 

I think the potential lock-down will probably be kind of pleasurable for three days – lie ins, junk food and wearing pjs all day – but once we’re all sick of wearing trackies and eating out of cans, that’s when the cabin fever will set in. And with cabin fever comes boredom and laziness which are absolute creativity killers. How will our creativity survive the potential lock-down?

 

Will getting feedback take longer?

 

What if I don’t explain my idea well over text? 

 

How does scamping work if you’re not with your partner?

 

Will we lose the momentum that we’ve been building all year?

 

What will the chemistry be like over video chat between my partner and me?

 

Will people continue working with the wrong partner for too long, because they don’t realise it’s not working?

 

Or will people break up because they think it’s not working, but it would work in real life?

 

How do you even break up with someone over the phone? What’s the courtesy?

 

How do you find a new partner when you’re not in the same room as them?

 

How does free association work when it’s not in person?

 

Will my partner return to their home country?

 

How do we look after our friends and partners who live alone, or far away from family if we can’t go and see them?

 

How will book crits work?

 

How do I build up a relationship with an agency/person if I can’t go in to meet them?

 

What if our book doesn’t improve as fast as it would if we worked on it in person?

 

What if I’m not ready for portfolio day?

 

How will it work going out to work in a recession?

 

Will they still be paying placements?

 

Will it take longer to get a job out of school?

 

Will I be more or less productive at home?

 

Am I going to go completely stir-crazy?

 

Why did I sell my car in November?

 

Where should I stay – in my tiny flat, or go back home?

 

What if I get too used to being at home, and then when we come back, I’ve become lazy?

 

How will relationships survive a potential three month lock down?

 

Will I run out of toilet paper?

 

I don’t have the answers – no one does – but when this all blows over, I’ll come back to this scab. And I’ll try to answer every single one of these questions. I’m excited to see how digital learning will work, honestly I am. My partner is American, so there may well be times in the future when we need to work remotely, so this could be very useful for us. I think this is a good opportunity to figure out a lot about ourselves; to find out if we can cope being alone, if we can freelance digitally, if creativity needs other people.