Quivering in Quarantine
Founded & curated by Molly Stephenson & Iona Mackenzie
About
We would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which this project was created, the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations. We acknowledge that this is stolen land and that sovereignty over this land was never ceded. We pay our deepest respects to their Elders - past, present and emerging.
Founded and curated by artists Molly Stephenson and Iona Mackenzie, Quivering in Quarantine is a digital platform specifically created to provide artists and writers a space to exhibit their work in 2020 during COVID-19.
We began Quivering in Quarantine in March, 2020, just as the virus began to sink its teeth into Melbourne, Australia. Both locally and globally, art communities have experienced an absence and deficiency of resources, education and studio spaces during the pandemic. Subsequently, these communities have been fractured - leaving individual practitioners with little support and nourishment.
Through QiQ, we aimed to showcase, celebrate and explore art within the context of a global pandemic. We hoped to re-activate not only our own practices, but those of other creatives who were also feeling the weight of social isolation, studio shutdowns and gallery closures. Additionally, this project was created to help steer our practices in a direction that is conscious of and responsive to global climates.
Quivering in Quarantine officially concluded at the end of 2020. We’re so proud to have released 6 captivating volumes and shown a total of 65 artists and writers whose works have spoken to everything from self-isolation to bio-horror. With each volume, we hope to have captured the grisly yet fertile essence of 2020’s zeitgeist.
We want to thank everyone who has followed our small-scale project over the course of this tumultuous year, and especially, we want to thank all of the artists and writers whose works have been a part of QiQ. We are endlessly grateful for you. It has been a pleasure to witness and experience the energized artistic response to the pandemic. We’re so inspired by the perseverance of artistic communities during this time and the methods of making and thinking that have been forced to bloom as a result of the strain.
With warmth and love,
Molly & Iona
Background artwork by Simone Scandrett, Caught Wings (2020)