The 8’oclock Buzz: Quarantine Connections Revives The Pen Pal

Quarantine Connections seeks to bring people together — safely — during the lockdown by fostering a retro method — pen pals, using real pen and paper. We’ll talk with artists Nathaniel Stern and Chris Butzen.

Instant messaging, video conferences, social media are all good ways of staying in touch with family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances while you’re in social isolation.  But they’re all… sort of … cold.  Something’s missing.  Wouldn’t it be nice, to receive an actual, handwritten letter?  That’s the premise of a new collaborative project called Quarantine Connections (site no longer online).  Sign up — yes, online — and you agree to send an envelope, through the mail, with a postage stamp on it, and you get one in return from someone, somewhere out there, who you’ve never met before, but with whom you might share a connection.  The project is the brainchild of three primary collaborators, two of whom join us by phone now.   U-W Milwaukee professor of art and mechanical engineering Nathaniel Stern is a familiar voice to longtime Buzz listeners. We also  have Chris Butzen, a Milwaukee native web developer currently living and working in Toronto.