Our lives and our world have shifted gears over the last month and we now find ourselves living our lives in a state of more or less constant separation. Words such as seclusion, isolation, confinement and quarantine have become part of our everyday lived experience, something we would thought unlikely, if not impossible several months ago. We are more within than without, though in being within we are also without.
We are in the process of redefining our world, our communities, and in some sense our selves. Living the remote life may come easier for some than for others, but we are unified on a global-level in this one regard: In order to be together in the future we must remain apart for the present.
Artists have always created works that bear witness life as they experienced it and today, all around the world, musicians, composers, visual artists and performers are making a body of work that forms a creative response to the global pandemic.
The Art faculty at Greenfield Community College have invited/challenged our students to develop their own response through their coursework for the remainder of the spring semester and have asked them to meditate on the following questions: How are you feeling? What are doing? How do interpret the information are you getting? What are looking at? What is going on in your household and other communities you may belong to? How is the situation effecting your state of mind? What is the space like that holds you? Are you alone or do you have people around you? If so, who are they? What are the conversations you are having in person or online? What does social-distancing mean for you personally? What challenges are you facing and how are you overcoming them? How are you making sense of this situation?
This web site is a visual record of their responses to these questions and more as we all learn what it means to live the remote life.