CityLife: Stories of Covid-19

CityLife is a project which since 2014 pairs up writers and community elders from marginalised communities to produce literary non-fiction about life in London, and then analyses that life writing data through interdisciplinary, mostly cultural studies-based methodologies. The elder population we work with is intersectionally, socio-economically underprivileged. Under Covid-19, these people and their communities are at terrible risk and under considerable mental health strain. Funding to a new phase of the project will allow us to take this project digital, while keeping it accessible to non-internet literate people. This will reinforce our legacy of intergenerational community-building, produce new literary content and activate it in research about isolation, community and coping with Covid-19 in London. We hope that this can represent and advocate for a segment of the population currently excluded from the conversation about Covid-19 in a public engagement, academic and policymaking context and help inform future responses.