A health crisis moodboad

A piece from the 'Wolverton, Thief of Impossible objects' comic which funny enough has been something on my mind lately

This photograph (from a news site) taken a few days after lock down, showing a mineral water pool near the Black sea with policeman struggling to get people out of there.

I took part in a sock design competition from a bulgarian brand called Stinky socks and this is a sketch. Even though the inspiration was from the brand's name, now I realize all the similarities with the piece from the Wolverton comic which is a funny subconscious relation I guess

Mike Tylor for the Desert island comics' 'Rescue party'

17 march 2020, Sofia, Bulgaria - 21 march 2020, Sofia Bulgaria

I'm Maya, a second year animation student.
I'm locked down in my home country, Bulgaria

A projection mapping I worked on at home. The projected sequence was inspired from the retro sci-fi aesthetic as I find the present we live in pictured in a lot of the sci-fi books from 40-50 years ago, especially the dystopian ones, which for me is as funny as scary. I used an analog effect made with a glass which I think gives a feeling of waviness as something you would relate to uncertainty but also change.

A moment out of the computer

Tuning in- A talk with Denise

Denise is an Austrian fine artist with fashion design background. We know eachother from mutual friends and we are following eachother on social media. Denise decided to stay in The Netherlands and not to go back home when the borders were getting closed down. As I am following her on social media I was seeing partly how she was coping with the situation but I reached out to her to have more insight on how is she feeling. I prepared some questions which I was also asking myself and we had a video chat in google hangouts.

First questions first- how you've been? Did you feel threathend and any point and was there the life and death fear?

It's crazy because the week before lockdown I was so stressed and had a mental breakdown everyday, I was waking up crying because I was working on multiple projects and I thought ' I can't do this anymore like this, I want to have a social life!' . Then the outbreak happened, the school closed so a lot of weight fell on my shoulders. The first two weeks were really hard as I realized - for three months no going out, no events, everything is closed so I felt really lost. Then in the third week as I was working on a magazine for a school project I was really busy so it kind of felt normal again. I was thinking before the whole thing started that I need a one week chill time, just to get off my rutine as we need sometimes to break up with ourselves to find to find ourselves again. So when the one week break came I felt really good actually and I really got used to the situation. But I also have roommates which also really helps hahah

Yes, you live with Anna (long time austrian friend), you speak in your own language - you are not alone. Have you thought what would it be if you were all by yourself?

Yes of course- as in Vienna I lived three years alone now I thought 'Oh, what would it be if I was there now.' and I know that I would be really depressed as I am a really outgoing, social person. But on the other hand I thought that I has never been so easy as today to stay connected and communicate in many ways so I think I would manage to also be by myself. But now I am really greatfull that I'm not alone!

It's nice that we have the internet to stay connected but there is also the downside of it- the huge piles of information that are coming everyday in forms of news, blogs, social media posts etc. How do you manage to sort your information out?

It's hard. I always check things on Worldometer.com for stats and never watch television. In the beginning I was checking everyday but now I do once in a while.

Do you think that the situation disrupts your workflow and creativity and do you have the need to be at the Academy?

As for most of my classmates it's hard for me. But also I usually do a lot of my work on the computer so I can do that anywhere and that's pretty nice. Now I have a nice creative flow and I am writing a lot again and I think you can do that best in solitude. That also helps me being creative and overthink stuff. So actually I did a lot of work and as school keeps us on going I feel like now is the time to reflect and think about yourself and the future and who is the person you actually want to be. But I now also have the time to try stuff and just feel free to fuck it up.


The interview turned into a nice conversation for sharing thoughts on what isolation means for both of us. We agreed on the fact that going out has the power of distraction from the everyday problems- moments when you don't think too much (usually) but rather you are in the moment, experiencing the world with the people around you. We also talked that being all by yourself , as amazing and desirable as it has always been for both of us, has the downside of you becoming dissasossiated with reality (for me could be that hard) and the people around are a mesure for yourself. That wouldn't mean that you need people to influence your thought but you need the feeling of how others are experiencing what is happening. Talking with Denise and seeing that she is doing pretty good and making the best out of the situation inspired me. It gave me a piece of the world that I am missing right now when I am home and that really helped me cope with what is going on around me.

This little illustration was inspired by all the events that occured since the beginning of 2020

so I made it into an embrodery on this hat ^

And than into a scribble on a 'wall'

Place 2020 - A performative action

I was feeling really worn out from all the negativity around me so I came up with the idea that I could make a platform where people could send images they made or took the recent months, that mean something to them and that they feel like sharing. So I decided to make an email only for that. I will send out the email address - place2020, to people and they will (maybe) send it out to others. So eventually it will turn out into a big database from people's memories and feelings encaptured in images.
At one point I will give out the password and people will be able to share it with whoever they want.
Then it will turn into an improvised platform know from a network of people. It will be a way to get into a little piece from everyone and see how they percieved the situation and maybe find someone with whom you relate.
Being an email it also gives the feeling the it's something private but you are there with a consent so in a way is public.

This is the message with which I approached a friend of mine and intend to approach people from my network that I have the contact of.

Then I decided that it would be even better if I reached out to even more people and in public so I thought of making stickers with the email address and a little description of the project and put then everywhere around the city and see what I get.

Maya's page

I grouped with Maya for the resit period. After all these months of isolation it was refreshing to work together again.
Since the lockdown was basically over for her, while I was already back in Armenia in a full quarantine, we couldn’t relate the COVID isolation of April anymore. First, we had the idea of doing a projection mapping and sharing thoughts of people on buildings, so basically having the contrast of small bits of personal thoughts on big, uncomfortable spaces. This took us to a conversation about our current situations, and we realized that, in a way, we have similarities in our background: some current political heat, the socialist past, a lot of abandoned spaces.
We thought it’s more relevant and more open (educational, why not) to combine our current situations, common historical past and connect our project to it.

Also, we noticed how the quarantine detached people from the world, as everyone was literally interacting with their own close, small environment (room, laptop screen), so we wanted to create a space where people could just share simple images from their lives and see, learn what life is like in other parts of the world.


We thought of making collages with all these scenes/buildings and distribute it as posters around with short texts about human survival/class struggle/social conditions, however, not in a very sophisticated way.
For collecting images and sharing with people, we thought opening an Instagram and taking people’s submissions of places they live in, or just images from their city that mean something to them. This could be an Instagram page for instance. That would also allow to create a network and share personal images of scenery, to make these collective images (collages) and talk about really simple, human actions and encourage humans to share their visual environments with each other and think about questions, especially after/during a pandemic that has made us question a lot.

Our audience is every citizen, every person who evern walks around or just wonders how people further than they are living.