IDEC Abstract Submission:
Interior Archipelago – Postcards from Our Islands: a collaboration of postcards representing interiors during Covid-19

The interior has never been given such attention as it has during waves of lock-downs in the Covid-19 pandemic. Near-sighted views of the interior have been magnified over several
months, drawing into focus emerging issues previously blurred. New genres of interiors have formed within our traditional interiors, both physical and virtual, and the pandemic made us look inside like we never have before. Boundaries between interior, exterior and virtual were blended
and continue to influence our experience of thresholds. At the global scale, political borders have abstract boundary lines, yet on the ground, walls and poche of living spaces act as
immediate buffers between individuals and neighbours. Even closer, face-masks intimately screen-off those friends and families not in one’s immediate bubble drawing into question where interior ends and exterior begins. During these periods of lockdown, familiar rooms were rearranged to toggle between work and life, or take on new quarantine quarters before being fully integrated into the interior. Interior Archipelago–Postcards from Our Islands is an international design project that captures the familiar, but transformed interior during this time. Daily routines have been interrupted and with that, our ability to travel at will as we primarily journey from room to room. Postcards recall travel while acting as souvenirs and objects of desire (Stewart, 1993). This presentation frames souvenirs as images from lock-downs in the form of postcard sized works. Postcards allow a simple object to carry significant meaning and representation expressing time and location (Meikle, 2000). Students, faculty and staff from the three interior design programs located in Canada, China, and Scotland (with a program in Singapore) were invited to submit postcard sized works that capture every day, quotidian interiors. In some cases, these may be quiet moments in a kitchen with early morning sun, or laundry hanging on a balcony to dry. Individual postcard images reveal cultures and locations as seen through imagery, language, and locations. With limitations on travel, these postcard images allowed our three international communities to build relationships and gain a multicultural understanding of one’s interior. A website became the repository for these postcard images where contributors could upload their images. Contributors were asked to submit up to five images, include their affiliated school location, name, and brief description if they desired.The time frame of four months for submitting images resulted in over 300 contributions spanning the three programs in Canada, China and Scotland. Students in China could capture a moment of an interior from another student in Scotland, while a student in Canada could view an interior moment from a student in China. The website is a digital photo album allowing our three design communities to share images from travels within the domestic realm and immediate surroundings. An exhibition of these images took place at the university in China in early 2021as students, faculty and staff were able to occupy their campus. The next exhibition is designed for the Canadian university following a similar palette of materials and presentation from China, but altered to fit the context of the university in Canada. The proposed exhibition continues this project as a design idea until it is safe to construct the exhibition and have students, faculty and staff return to engage the physical collection of postcards.The exhibition is located along a wall in the Interior Design program’s building with a display of postcard images from the website collection. An area of the exhibition design includes a shelf with printed postcards for students to write to one another and a designed mailbox for collection. These postcards will be mailed back to the respective programs to build new relationships that provide global perspectives.

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The paper was recipient of the Best Creative Scholarship award