Even in lockdown there is plenty to do! Check out the best online activities and remote events you can get involved in this May

Continuing from last month’s diary, for May we are still keeping it digital! The most important thing right now is for everyone to stay safe and not go insane. You don’t need to write that screenplay or learn another language, what is important is getting through each day.

Hopefully, some of this month’s events will keep you feeling enlightened and interested. There are lots of fascinating things to see, listen and do from the comfort of your bed, sofa or chair – so keep an eye out. Without further ado, here are ten of our top suggestions for what’s on for the month of May!

Home Slice

Launched yesterday, Jean Jullien’s latest exhibition Home Slice is a display of his escapist painting. Due to be a physical exhibition entitled Slices in New York, but since being postponed, this has become Chandran Gallery’s first digital exhibition. Appropriately focusing on the themes of time passing and change, Jean’s beautiful paintings capture blissful, fleeting moments, all for the charitable cause of Fondation de France – in support of French medical workers.

We Are One: Global Film Festival

Combining the efforts of over 20 film festivals worldwide, Tribeca Film Enterprises and YouTube will host a ten-day digital festival: We Are One: Global Film Festival. The festival will include feature films, discussion panels, music and talks in order to raise money for the WHO in response to Covid-19. Running from 29 May to 7 June, it includes the line ups of the Cannes, Sundance and Venice Film Festivals.

Screenwalks

An international collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery, London, and Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, Screenwalks is a live-streamed series of online explorations led by artists, who discuss the digital spaces that influence their practice. The artists so far have included Alan Butler, Roc Herms and Joana Moll, with the aim to continue to support artistic efforts and research during the global crisis.

STORE Store

Coal Drops Yard’s on-site design school, STORE Store, has launched a series of online workshops, downloadable guides and after school clubs to aid creativity in lockdown.

Split into three online activity streams, the online events include Makers Manuals, where designers have been commissioned to create a “bi-weekly series of downloadable manuals for objects you can make at home.” There is also follow along workshops to join in with, such as Online Bioplastics coming up on 9 May. The final option is an after school club, of which the first edition in April included a 3D animation class using Cinema4D with Hanna Schrage.

The first works created in these online events will soon be posted in an online gallery in May too.

Well Now WTF?

An online-only show, Well Now WTF? showcases the work of artists who may be unable to exhibit in physical galleries via the digital art platform Silicon Valet. Curated by Faith Holland, Lorna Mills and Wade Wallerstein, the exhibition made its debut in early April with over 80 artists involved, and is returning with a new roster of 25 at the start of May – all of which are working within the realms of the internet and digital media.

Viral Film Festival

In an attempt to, not just spend all of our time streaming, but reignite the experience of seeing a good film and then dissecting it with friends, Viral Film Festival picks films for you to watch every week, before hosting a live chat via Instagram. Hosted by playwright Brian Mullin and Irish film festival programmer Seán McGovern, you can find out what this week’s films are on its Instagram account.

Anno’s Journey: The World of Anno Mitsumasa

First launched last year, Anno’s Journey: The World of Anno Mitsumasa has since been digitised by Japan House London, becoming its first online exhibition, taking you on a retrospective of work across the life of renowned illustrator, Anno Mitsumas. From scenes of his childhood in rural Japan before the second world war to his time in the British Cotswolds in the 1970s, the comprehensive body of work is rich in delicate detail, joy and character.

#FLVfromhome

Each week, the Fondation Louis Vuitton is offering you the possibility to watch an exhibition, concert and a masterclass from its archive, with each event having taken place at the Foundation since its opening in 2014. Go on the site today to celebrate International Dance Day – why not?

David Blandy: How to Live/How to Fly

Taking over the John Hansard Gallery website, David Blandy is displaying two new digital commissions, How to Live and How to Fly, launching today. In the familiar form of YouTube tutorial videos, David explores existential themes of life and nature, utilising digital software and video games like Grand Theft Auto V. Opening today on the John Hansard Gallery website, they will be running all month.

No Time Like The Present

With the aim to help engage audiences and creatives across the globe during this trying time, No Time Like The Present, by Public Gallery, brings together over 50 international artists, spanning the creative disciplines, by asking them to create one piece of physical work and one video piece in response to the global pandemic. Brought together on this platform, the vast collaboration shows a contemporary reaction to life in quarantine.

Alvaro Barrington

Alvaro Barrington has created a series of downloadable drawings that have now been available to access for free via the gallery on the website. Just part of the drawing has been coloured in, leaving the rest unmarked as an invitation for all – artists, non-artists, children and adults alike – to draw and cut out, creating a “virtual collaboration to pass the time”.