Dear Chicago,

In the face of everything that’s happening: here we are, together. You are sticking together, working together, and caring for each other like never before. Your acts of kindness and ingenuity in this time of shutdowns, sickness, and inequity have inspired us to do the same. 

How? After a week of reconfiguring all of our lives, again and again, we launched a new project, The Quarantine Times. It’s an expanded conversation and publication project designed by team members and friends of Public Media Institute (PMI), the nonprofit that runs the Co-Prosperity Sphere, Lumpen Magazine, Lumpen Radio (WLPN 105.5fm), and eventually, the new Buddy space at the Chicago Cultural Center. The Quarantine Times will live on the web and the radio, in an email newsletter, and, once all this is over, in a publication and at a party. 

SInce Monday, March 23rd 2020, our team, which includes a board of editors working in different disciplines, has been commissioning and sharing creative responses from Chicago community members getting through this crisis as best they can. We share their news daily across all our platforms. Finally, together with our friends and family, we aim to provide direct financial support to one featured artist per day, for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic of 2020.

This project continues until the crisis ends, at which point all artists’ contributions will be promptly compiled into a publication and released at a celebration. We'll be together again.

In Solidarity,
Your Buddies at Public Media Institute