It’s been a strange and challenging year so far for everyone, all over the world, with the pandemic hitting and grinding an all mighty halt to the world and what makes it turn. Our emergency services have been working tirelessly to keep everyone safe and healthy, businesses have ceased trading, shops have closed and people have been stuck at home for a number of months.
Everyone has been hit hard by the pandemic, no more so than the artists and designers whose work and projects have been put on hold, or worse so; cancelled completely. Hundreds of thousands of art, design, photography and many other practises projects have been cancelled and would most likely never see the light of day. But two people who sought to change this were Dorothee Dähler and Yeliz Secerli, being creatives themselves they also felt the impact of the pandemic on their practice.
Yeliz is the director of design at the Jewish Museum in New York and Dorothee, who is a freelance graphic designer, both saw their workflow plummet when almost every project they were working on came to an immediate halt when the pandemic hit. So much of the work that they had been working on for the months prior to the pandemic had gone to waste.
This is where the idea to celebrate this work began. Knowing that they weren’t the only creatives to experience this disruption they took the decision to reach out to others and found many had found themselves in the same situation, this then formed an online community that started with 50 contributors but has since continued to grow. They created a platform in which these creatives could share and celebrate the work that they had created, this is where Parallel Parallel was born.
The name stems from the idea that there is another parallel universe in which all this work exists and is published, and where the word ‘corona’ still simply refers to a beer brand. A website was built to accompany this platform, a way of showing the world all of the neglected creative work that had been in the pipeline before the world was ground to a halt. The website replicates the nature of the project by being a complete parallel copy of itself, built by Quentin Creuzet, the website is a mirror image of itself which gives a blunt reference to the project’s aims.
The creators have had a great deal of success come from this project already and are getting daily emails from creatives all over the world who are looking to get involved in the project. Yeliz and Dorothee explain that they are excited about the continuation of this project and are pleased with the response they have received. It is a pleasure to see all of the graft and hard work that went into these projects not go to waste, and to be celebrated. Go check out the ever-growing number of projects on the website for yourself at: https://parallel-parallel.com
