Interior Archipelago–Postcards from Our Islands is an international design project that captures the familiar interior transformed during this time. It was first proposed in March 2020, close to when the virus was given its name, COVID–19. The design studio’s in the three participating institutions were each experiencing impacts, lockdowns and prohibitions of varying durations and differing intensities, the moment of harvesting contributions was subject to appropriate delays. Time had become elastic within a broader global context of restriction, false-dawns and anxiety.

This collection of postcard-sized images began forming in December 2020 as a second wave and new-variants were emerging. A communal and public website is the repository for these. Contributors were asked to share their interior representations, descriptions and locations. These near-sighted perspectives draw into focus emerging issues previously blurred. Contributions show how new areas of the interior have come to the foreground eg micro-quarantine spaces in vestibules; workspaces squeezed into domestic environments; a yoga mat on the floor to define an activity, and the rearrangement of furniture to make sub-rooms. The confined interior also reveals the desire for having space to one’s self when constantly surrounded by others, or the need to have others around when constantly alone. The interior is not only defined by the size, measurement, view, sound, smell, and so on, but by the frequency of absence.