Blog of March 2020 - Coronavirus special edition

March 2020 is a month that will stay in the minds, the coronavirus has paralyzed the whole society. Before we talk about all this, I will first describe the beginning of the month.

The first week of March begins with our regular appointment with the children of the special dormitory. The workshop was a quiz around the rooms of the house, especially the kitchen. The next morning we had a presentation of the European Solidarity Corps at the High School of Art and Design. We were able to introduce ourselves and explain our approach to join the European Solidarity Corps. The students asked us questions, both technical and personal, about going abroad and our feelings about Slovenia and Maribor in particular. The advantage is that all three of us are from different countries and with different profiles. In the afternoon, it was my fourth French course. This course was mainly based on oral practice of the language. I adapted my course around vocabulary and pronunciation. I spoke more French and the students were able to discover my favourite places, neighbourhoods and locations in Paris. On Thursday, a Spanish psychologist proposed a workshop called: Let's talk about mental health. This workshop was about sadness. The event introduced us, first of all, to what sadness is and then gave us some advice on how to accept sadness. The conference ended with a very interesting exchange around the subject. During the whole week, together with Urška, Filip and Lucas, we are preparing an event around Angela Davis as part of the reading cycle of the Aunt Rosa Library. I also spent a lot of time in the gallery and was able to answer visitors' questions about my exhibition. At the same time, I also prepared my workshop about the private and public space related to my exhibition.

The following week, we start on Tuesday evening with the event around Angela Davis and more specifically around her book: Woman, race and class. Urška prepared a general presentation of Angela Davis and we then developed more specifically around two chapters. Chapter 13, entitled "The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: A Working-Class Perspective" and chapter 11, entitled "Rape, Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist". The evening was very enriching, with much debate.

On Thursday, I was supposed to have my workshop at gallery K18 around private and public space but unfortunately it was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

From Wednesday March 11th, the Slovenian government decided to cancel all public events and from day to day, the restrictions became more and more important. From that moment on, the whole team had to think about how to continue working in its conditions. I must confess, like everyone else, that I never imagined that one day a problem like this would develop, but life is an accumulation of surprises, good or bad. Starting the following week, we transformed our weekly meetings into videoconferences. Together with Lucas and Filip, we decided to adapt our walk, which we had planned for the Rajzerfiber Walking Festival, in a digital way. It was a collaborative work where we had to do it with digital means. In the end, this crisis is a bit of an experiment in teleworking for me. At the end of the month, I also adapted my French course in a digital way and we are working on a digital reading around Simone de Beauvoir's work, the Second Sex.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, see you in a month for April's blog.
Take care of yourself.
Gilles.