Letters from COVID-19
Lonely and bored in quarantine? Struggling to process how quickly the world around you has changed in light of the novel coronavirus pandemic? Write a letter!
The Letters from COVID-19 Project is collecting letters about your thoughts and experiences during the pandemic for a crowd-sourced time capsule. When the day comes that it is safe to gather in groups once again, these letters will be displayed in an exhibit for a post-coronavirus world.
How does it work?
1. Write a letter! To a friend or a loved one, or even your future yourself— whoever you want. Share what's on your mind these days, or what's changed.
Letters are personal and honest, so don't be afraid to get what's off your chest. Remember to include the date, and sign your name.
2. Slide it into an envelope, stick on a stamp, and mail it to:
Carmen Molina Acosta
P.O. Box 502
Cabin John, MD 20818
Feel free to include some kind of trinket or artifact as a bonus: that can be a sketch, a poem you wrote, or a recipe you tried!
graphic courtesy pikisuperstar
Over the course of a handful of weeks, communities across the country— and the world— have been flipped upside down by the novel coronavirus pandemic. While there’s a shared trauma and grief, it’s something a lot of us are going through alone, as we isolate and social distance in an effort to limit the spread. My hope is that this project can help us all process this experience, share it and record it for longevity, all without having to leave our homes.
The ultimate goal is to display the letters in a gallery once people are finally able to congregate again safely. Currently, that intends to be the Design Cultures and Creativity Capstone Fair at the University of Maryland in the Fall, though that may change. The letters will also also be scanned and posted online together to form a mosaic of what this time period looked like.
Estimates for when this pandemic will end vary from a few months to over a year. In keeping with the uncertainty of that timeline, this project will go on indefinitely— so long as you keep sending letters, I’ll keep receiving them!
3. Shoot me a quick email to let me know it’s on its way!
4. Your work here is done!
I'll hold on to your letter and reach out again when the pandemic is over, where it will be displayed in a physical and digital gallery.
Why letters?
The symbolism behind the letter is that it's a physical item that gets to be exchanged in a time when physical contact has to be avoided. Personally, I've been experimenting with efforts to document and process my experience in a lot of different ways— art, journaling, writing. But one of the most effective ways I’ve found is writing letters to my friends from college— real, pen-to-paper, stamp-to-envelope letters. Yes, we still text and call and Zoom. But there’s something about getting to put a snapshot of your life on a page— and willingly letting it go— that doesn’t quite compare.
Buying stamps and sending mail is also a great and easy way to support the USPS postal system! An essential public service, the postal system has also found itself financially vulnerable during this pandemic.
Some overall tips:
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Make sure you have enough stamps! The worst feeling in the word is putting a letter lovingly in the mail, only for it to come back your way a few days later. Usually, you’ll only need one 55 cent forever stamp. However, if you’re writing a lot or include something else in your envelope, it may exceed the 1 ounce limit. Check out this link for help calculating how many you might need!
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Don’t send anything you feel strongly about having returned to you. The postal system can be finicky, and there’s always the risk your letter may be lost or damaged on its way over.
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Try to write as legibly as possible. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but writing your thoughts down for posterity does work best if they can be read again later.
Still confused?
Frequently asked questions
Behind the project
Meet Carmen Molina Acosta
Lover of letter-writing, journals and stationary, I'm a journalism student at the University of Maryland seeking creative ways to document the world around me.
This project is part- passion project, part- experiment, and part- Capstone project for the Design Cultures and Creativity Honors Program.