The Quiet Earth: Re-Functioning Socio-material Knowledge in the Crisis of the Pandemic

With its lockdown and restrictions on movement, the Covid-19 pandemic has created a rapid change in the relationship we have with the material environment The resulting social isolation and our increased reliance on the virtual of the internet have meant that our potential for material engagement has become limited This article explores one response to these limitations that illustrates the potential for new forms of knowledge to emerge from re-functioning the objects around us and ultimately re-engineering the self to adapt creatively to the crisis of pandemic Drawing on ideas of socio-material learning and the distributed self, the essay explores the 'pedagogy of pandemic': a learning space in which creativity is central to the negotiation of problems associated with limited material surroundings, forming a type of situated knowledge specific to the conditions, materials and practices of isolation