Tidy Studio, Tidy Mind
Memories From The Year 2030
Writing
Curated by Elliott P. Montgomery and published in the Walker Art Center’s The Gradient
Read the entire series here.
“Memories From the Year 2030” is a collection of fictional letters, memos and visual artefacts created by a group of futurists, speculative designers, authors and artists.
In March 2020 the contributors were invited to respond to the following prompt:
How will we remember these times a decade from now? What actions might we take in the coming months that will shape memories for the next ten years or more? What parts of 2020 will have stayed with us? What parts will have faded? How did 2020 change us? What are we proud of? What do we regret?
“Tidy studio, tidy mind.” I first heard the phrase when I was an artist’s studio assistant, marking the end of the working day and the time to clear up and out. Since then, the phrase comes to mind every so often, and I remember its weird incongruity during the months of the coronavirus pandemic. In particular, the words would spin as I prepared for each working day by compulsively and unsuccessfully straightening the edges of the billowing duvet, the penultimate act of the early morning, before closing the bedroom door and walking to work. My finicky behaviour was driven by knowing my walk to “work” would loop me round the neighbouring streets, along the Rhine and through the front door again, greeting my wife and daughter who had cheerfully waved me goodbye from the window of our first-floor apartment, and back into the same room I had left only ten minutes earlier. The bedroom was now the studio, while the studio was always the bedroom for the duration of those strange spring and summer months in 2020.
In March 2020 the contributors were invited to respond to the following prompt:
How will we remember these times a decade from now? What actions might we take in the coming months that will shape memories for the next ten years or more? What parts of 2020 will have stayed with us? What parts will have faded? How did 2020 change us? What are we proud of? What do we regret?