Echoing each others’ sentiments of hope and optimism during uncertain times, the folks who contributed to a new short film have joined together despite being thousands of miles apart. “A Social Distance” is a collective look at global life during COVID-19 featuring dozens of people, ranging from a 93-year old Malayan grandmother to a 19-year old Slovenian man, from the 30 most-affected countries.
Directed by Ivan Cash and Jacob Jonas, the crowd-sourced project compiles clips of people’s hand-washing practices, their stocked and bare fridges, and emotional messages about their worries. Some dance to the original score played by various musicians from their respective homes. Despite its anxiety-producing subject matter, though, the compilation is surprisingly hopeful.
Find more work from Cash and Jonas on Vimeo. You also might like this wildly choreographed music video filmed entirely on Zoom.
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The World Around's Earth Day 2020 symposium, which we are broadcasting today as part of Virtual Design Festival, features talks, presentations, films and essays by over twenty visionaries at the forefront of ecological design.
Cooking Section will present its Climavore installation on the Isle of Skye
Following a short introduction by The World Around curator Beatrice Galilee, the symposium starts with a conversation between Maite Borjbad, architecture and design curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, and architects Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe, who run London studio Cooking Sections.
The conversation covers the studio's work investigating the relationship between climate change, diet and industrial food production. This includes its Climavore installation on the Isle of Skye, which acts as a restaurant at low tide and an underwater oyster table when the tides rise.
Nelly Ben Hayoun explores the future of education through the medium of Instagram filters
This is followed by a conversation between experience designer Ben Hayoun and Sepake Angiama, artistic director of the Institute of International Visual Arts (INIVA), who discuss new ways of teaching and new spaces for learning via the medium of Instagram filters.
Galilee then speaks to Lagos architect Adeyemi about his research into communities that are living on the water (top image), and what architects should learn from the climate emergency and coronavirus pandemic.
Harriet Harriss and Timothy Morton discuss ethics frameworks
The first session of the symposium ends with a conversation between Harriet Harriss, dean of architecture at Pratt Institute, and Timothy Morton, a philosopher and author of books including HyperObjects, Dark Ecology and Ecology Without Nature.
The pair exchange ideas about ethics frameworks for operating in the world, touching on veganism, rethinking streams of capital and responsibility for social justice.
The World Around symposium takes place on the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day in 1970, which saw 20 million people in the USA demonstrate against the damage human activity causes the natural environment.
It is the second event organised by The World Around, a platform for architecture and design discussions founded last year by Galilee, Diego Marroquin and Alexandra Hodkowski. The online programme replaces a physical conference that The World Around was planning, which had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This is the first of three sessions that make up the symposium, which is structured around three themes titled Rethink, Reimagine and Recreate. We will be continuing the stream the other sessions throughout the day on a dedicated page as part of Virtual Design Festival.
Starting at 4:00pm, the second part of the programme will include short films by Kalyanee Mam and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, as well as two discussions: curator Aric Chen will speak to designer Thomas Thwaites, while curator Mariana Pestana will be in conversation with architecture firm Studio Ossidiana.
The third part of the event, which will be broadcast from 6:00pm, will feature talks by Facebook's vice president of product design Margaret Stewart, architect Cameron Sinclair, visual artist Amanda Williams, and landscape artist Walter Hood, as well as a conversation between curator Karen van Godtsenhoven and designer Mats Rombaut.
These talks will be followed by an interview with collaborative architecture practice Design Earth conducted by curator and writer Carson Chan, and an exclusive screening of a new short film called The Transscalar Architecture of COVID-19 by Andrés Jaque and Ivan Munuera.
Here's the schedule for the day:
VDF x The World Around Earth Day 2020 symposium schedule
1:00pm Live interview with The World Around curator Beatrice Galilee
2:00pm Live broadcast of part one of the symposium, titled Rethink
Cooking Sections in conversation with Maite Borjabad
Nelly Ben Hayoun in conversation with Sepake Angiama
Kunlé Adeyemi in conversation with Beatrice Galilee
Harriet Harriss in conversation with Timothy Morton
4:00pm Live broadcast of part two of the symposium, titled Reimagine
Malika Leiper in conversation with Kalyanee Mam, plus film screening
Aric Chen in conversation with Thomas Thwaites
Mariana Pestana in conversation with Studio Ossidiana
Apichatpong Weerasethakul in conversation with Andrea Lissoni, plus film screening
6:00pm Live broadcast of part three of the symposium, titled Recreate
Cameron Sinclair talk
Amanda Williams talk
Karen van Godtsenhoven in conversation with Mats Rombaut
Margaret Stewart talk
Walter Hood talk
8:00pm Design Earth interview by Carson Chan
9:00pm Premiere of The Transscalar Architecture of Covid-19 short film by Andrés Jaque and Ivan Munuera
From 2:00pm (UK time) today, Virtual Design Festival will host a series of online talks, interviews, short films and essays exploring ideas that could "shape the future of our relationship with the planet", according to Galilee.
In this live interview to introduce the symposium, Galilee speaks to Dezeen's editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs about the programme, which she curated in partnership with Facebook's Artist in Residence programme, and how curators and events organisers are adapting to the current lockdown across much of the world.
The programme, which Dezeen announced this morning, will explore "ways to ethically reconnect with our food, designing, building and living with human and non-human animals, radical new forms of pedagogy, biodegradable accessories, and the extreme new visual landscapes the coronavirus has generated," according to Galilee.
After leaving the museum in 2019, Galilee teamed up with Diego Marroquin and Alexandra Hodkowski to establish a new architecture and design forum called The World Around. The first The World Around conference took place in New York in January earlier this year, which Dezeen also live streamed in full.
The second The World Around event was due to take place in New York City today, but had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, Virtual Design Festival has teamed up with The World Around to present a digital version of the programme.
"I'm wondering what to say and what our role is"
In a video message published earlier today, Galilee said that she had been questioning what the role of the creative industries should be during the coronavirus pandemic.
"Like everybody working in the creative industries now, I'm wondering what to say and what our role is and what we can learn from these extremely complicated times that we're all sharing together," Galilee said in the video.
"Those are some of the questions I'm asking the best people I know in the design industries on 22 April here on Dezeen, when The World Around is going to take over the website for Earth Day."
Architect Kunlé Adeyemi and Facebook's Margaret Stewart to give talks
Kicking off at 2:00pm (UK time), straight after this talk, the Earth Day 2020 symposium will feature speakers including Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi, French experience designer Nelly Ben Hayoun and Facebook's vice president of product design Margaret Stewart.
