In March of 2020, as COVID 19 hit the world, artist-friends alys longley and Máximo Corvalán-Pincheira wanted to find a way to evade the closure of borders and to challenge, through artistic practice, what they saw as a rise of isolationism and nationalism across the world. They turned to artist maps as a method for attempting to continue processes of artist collaboration.

 

The aim was to find means to bring artists from across the world to touch across borders.

 

They began with the postal service, and worked with NZ-based watercolour artist Jeffrey Holdaway to design a series of bespoke envelopes, each one an original painting, as a way of sending a moment of sky into the hands of postal workers, and into the hands of friends and collaborators in all continents of the world. 

​

This project expanded out into the digital and online mediums with contributions of digital maps from artists around the world augmented through sound design and moving image / animation by Jeffrey Holdaway and placed within an immersive online space in collaboration with DotDot Studios.