When Can I See You Again Hardcover – March 14, 2024

A compilation of when, where, and why? When Can I See You Again is the proxy name for the project "@punkpostcards," a collection of moments, memories, and feelings about the COVID-19 pandemic in real time by René Petersson. Prompted to start this project by the Los Angeles Public Library's call for submissions to their "Safer at Home - COVID-19" digital archive project, Petersson amassed 101 postcards and letters from friends around the world. These experiences will live on as a promise for a future no one was promised and a memory of a time impossible to forget.The goal from the start was to incite and inspire a sense of introspection and creative action from everyone and anyone who needed the outlet. With no understanding of how long the various stay-at-home orders and personal quarantines would last, the timeline for this project was extended a number of times, which of course, allowed for more submissions to come through. For each postcard Petersson sent, he prompted each recipient with questions such as, “how is your quarantine going?," "how are you staying creative?," or "send me your best quarantine recipes.” Hearing about people’s individual lockdown experiences, as well as, responses to the sociopolitical climate of the first year, gave this project a sense of purpose – that being, to record what life in the year+ of COVID-19 was really like for a wide-ranging and diverse set of humans. Read more