Fitzwilliam Masterpieces 2020 Edition

It’s no secret that the Arts have been particularly hard hit by the Coronavirus pandemic. Museums, galleries, exhibition spaces and art centres have all been shut for months.

One amusing way the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has been keeping their would-be visitors engaged is by reimagining some of their best-loved works of art as appropriate for the coronavirus-era.

John Everett Millais’ Bridesmaid dons a delicate floral mask to match her silken gown, while The Twins, Kate and Grace Hoare, prepare for an outing with their faithful hound. In Jan van Meyer’s portrait of The Daughters of Sir Matthew Decker, the girls play safely and ensure their little doll also follows social distancing measures. This sympathetically designed range, The Fitzwilliam says, provides a playful perspective on our current lives through the art we know and love. The greetings cards are available to buy online here.

BioBombola

We’ve seen people do some pretty quirky stuff since being in lockdown. But how about growing your own algae? That’s new.

Architecture and research practice EcoLogicStudio have developed BioBombola: an educational grow-your-own edible algae set for children. Designed to keep kids entertained at home and bring families together, the DIY kit can be used to cultivate a strain of Spiruline, a type of blue-green algae. Full of nutrients, the algae can be harvested and added to food and drinks as a source of protein. You can even make vegetable protein bread! The kit has the ability to absorb the equivalent of two young trees in carbon dioxide, and can release the same amount of oxygen as seven houseplants. Educational, self-sufficient and, ultimately, fun, it’s the perfect way to keep children learning in an environmentally-friendly way during quarantine.

Ai Weiwei Mask Campaign

Back in May contemporary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, launched a series of face masks in collaboration with eBay intended to support human rights and relief organizations in response to the COVID-19 health pandemic. The designs were sold as single works and in collections of four and twenty. The campaign ran for a whole month, and Weiwei announced on instagram this week that the initiative sold 22,528 masks and raised a total of $1,432,700.

The masks were hand-printed with iconic images celebrating the artist’s life-long campaigning for free speech and individual rights. As one of China’s most celebrated contemporary artists and a leading dissident, Weiwei continues to comment and produce reactionary work to current events. "I try to relate my works to everyday life, to ordinary things, to the familiar. at the same time, I add some twists to make us question our rationality."

Aux Zine

InHouse Records took on the task of launching Aux, a weekly zine that has been distributed to prisons and correctional facilities in the UK and USA in order to help alleviate the pressures that have been placed upon facilities due to Covid-19. Founded by Judah Armani, the non-profit organisation is the first fully functioning record label to be launched in prison, and is created with and by prisoners.

The zine was conceived by Armani as a way to “combat potential anxieties and frustrations and to support the prisoners without us being inside,” explains InHouse Records’ Hannah Lee. The design of Aux is vibrant and colourful, and is heavily informed by Lee’s experiences teaching graphic design in prisons.

The zine also comes with a CD, which Lee says functions like a podcast by offering a summary of each section and a selection of tracks to work with. Creating an audio accompaniment to the zine seeks to address varying literacy rates among prisoners, and is designed to help improve literacy skills by allowing people to read along while listening.