Postcards for Solidarity
No matter where you were born, where you live, what language you speak. No matter your skin colour, religion, or belief. In 2020, we were all living through a global pandemic; the future remained uncertain for all of us.
Commissioned by Interfaith Scotland and created by artist Iman Tajik, Postcards for Solidarity explores facets of shared humanity across the globe in the face of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. Responding to the theme of connecting, Tajik issued an open call for contributors from all over the world to come together as collaborators.
Participants responded to the open call by creating a self-portrait of their hand and a short text about life in lockdown. In order to facilitate the work and connect participants virtually, Tajik and writer Loll Jung held two workshops designed to give guidance on the nature of self-portraiture and explore different ways of writing and editing personal experiences of the pandemic into poetic forms.
This online exhibition is the outcome of that collaborative artwork, in addition to the randomised posting of the postcards to participants: a small message of hope and solidarity from a stranger, exploring the community of humans across faiths, borders, and social structures, connected by one commonality: we’re all human, we’re all experiencing similar feelings of loss, grief, isolation, and, sometimes, hope.
To read the postcards, hover over the images with your cursor.
About The Artists
Many thanks to Jenifer Argo and the Scottish Interfaith Week team for all their support, and to all of our contributors, both anonymous and named: Sofie Adelsparre, Babak, Joshua Brown, Tom Byrne, Venus Carew, Cat Dunn, Bill English, Linda Haggerstone, Sherrill Harvey, Sarah Heald, Jenny Junggeburth, Jan Lethbridge, Alan McKay, Radina McKay, Pınar, Ashley Holdsworth Quinn, Heather Robertson, Maureen Sier, Meredith Grace Thompson, Caz Westwater, Annie Runkel, Nieves Soria and Mirella Arcidiacono.