Highlights
- Creatives have become more resourceful in finding ways to continue making arts amidst the pandemic.
- "Interno" is a series of podcast about several artists from Australia, America and Asia.
- Artists have been re-calibrating their internal lives and became more active online for their arts to survive.
Just like many artists whose creativity have flourish even more, Mariam Arcilla continue to find ways to practise art.
"I am seeing a lot of artists doing studio tours online, doing Instagram interviews. They are using the lockdown time to actually reflect on their artworks," says writer and producer Mariam Arcilla.
Harnessing her creativity
Mariam produced a series of podcasts that feature several creatives from different parts of the world.
“I had to adapt a lot of the projects that I was doing. I’m a writer, I usually interview people in person. I had to adapt the way I write. I had an interview with an art collector – they collected a lot of artwork but I was not able to visit their house because of the virus so they showed me their house tour in a small iPad," Mariam shares.
Through the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) with funding from the Queensland Government, she was able to produce Interno.
"Interno", a part of the IMA's Making Art Work initiative, is a four-part series podcast of Mariam's conversations with couple of artists from Australia, North America, Canada and Asia.
In the first part of the series, three "Filipinx" creatives from New York, Gabriella Mozo, Marielle Sales and Mal Tayag share how very proactive they are on social media and on the streets fighting for human rights.
Mariam Arcilla at home during quarantine. Source: Eloise Fuss
They run Sari-Sari Studio, a collective that supports BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and Filipinx creatives and innovators from around the world.
"Right now they are fighting for Black Lives Matter and BIPOC solidarity and at the same time there’s a pandemic. Their whole priority is social activism versus social distancing," according to the Interno producer.
The group recently released the latest issue of their magazine, Kapwa. "Quaranzine" that features 60 artists, photographers, writers and designers around the world who are from the Philippine diaspora, sharing "their creative works and talking about being stuck in lockdown and what that has to do with creativity, how this has enabled them to find new ways of working."
Sari-Sari Studio's Gabriella Mozo, Mal Tayag, Marielle Sales. Source: Sari-Sari Studio
Finding ways to be more productive
In another podcast, Australian-born artist Sara Morawetz shares how the virus has affected her personally and her artworks.
The 2016 National Emerging Art Prize winner documented their experience when she and her NASA scientist husband contracted coronavirus while based in New York.
The recipient of the 2017 Vida Lahey Memorial Travelling Scholarship finds ways to continue working on her projects and performances that got cancelled due to COVID-19.
In the other parts of the series, Marian speaks with Maori artist Sezzo who was formerly based in Brisbane but now lives in before South Korea and Queensland-based Australian contemporary jewellery designer Bianca Mavrick.
Creating a positive mindset whilst in isolation
These artists only prove that no matter what challenges they face, they are able to find innovative ways to continue their works.
"They are using lockdown time to actually reflect on the artworks and how they contribute to the wider world as artists and as human beings," reflects Mariam.
"It has not prevented many creative people from creating, but it has made them think of new ways to talk about their work and about what they are contributing to the world in a more positive and meaningful way, not that it was not like that before," the Interno producer says,
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