Pandemic stories of love and heartbreak to be displayed across London in new campaign

Anonymous submissions from users across the UK will go on display

Blue medical face masks and a red heart on a pink background (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Stories of love and empowerment from during the pandemic are set to be exhibited at vacant retail spaces across London.

Over the course of the past year, Instagram account “Lockdown_lovestories” has been chronicling how we fell in love, out of love, our friendships and difficult family dynamics.

The project, which was started by writer and artist Philippa Found in May 2020 – during the height of the first lockdown – asks users to anonymously submit their stories to be shared with the public.

Some of the most recent submissions include accounts of a short-lived seven-day long romance, reminiscing over a lost love from eight years ago and an uplifting message encouraging others to think of all the challenges they overcame in the past year.

Now, following almost a year of retail closures, Lockdown_lovestories is being brought to physical spaces across England’s capital in a bid to “reactivate” the high street.

In collaboration with Derwent, a London-based property investment firm, 13 of its spaces in central, east, south and west London will be turned into exhibition sites from 12-30 August.

Announcing the news, Found described the project as “feminist art intervention and activist storytelling, updated for the Instagram and Covid generation”.

The stories, which will be displayed in the windows of the stores, will cover a number of themes including self-love, getting over exes, falling in love and positive break-ups.

Taking inspiration from feminist artist Barbara Kruger, the stories will be displayed in bold red font on top of the Instagram account’s signature pink background.

Found told Metro she hopes the exhibit will “amplify normal peoples’ true love stories”.

“The stories submitted to lockdown love stories are real and raw because they’re anonymous, people feel safe to confess the things we don’t normally talk about, and there is massive mental health benefits in that.

“I wanted to amplify normal peoples’ true love stories to showcase the reality of love and dating today – bringing these stories to physical space is a way to do that,” she said.

The sites are in Paddington, Soho, Brixton, Whitechapel, Old Street, Westminster and Clerkenwell. Found said the spaces were deliberately chosen for being spaces that are accessed by a “wide demographics of people regardless of age, gender, sexuality, race or class”.

The project comes after Found also collaborated with Transport for London during the second national lockdown in November.

From 16-29 November 2020, anonymous submissions to the page were displayed on the tube announcement boards and customer information boards at Picadilly Circus and Morden stations.