Enlivening windows from Oxford Street to Shoreditch High Street in Lockdown Love Stories signature pink and a bold red font, these are normal people’s true stories platformed in non-art spaces to highlight and normalise the reality of love and dating today. 

This is feminist art intervention and activist storytelling, updated for the Instagram and Covid generation.

What’s your lockdown love story?

The public spaces that Philippa brought Lockdown Love Stories to were deliberately chosen for being spaces that are accessed by a wide demographic of people regardless of age, gender, sexuality, race or class and also for having a specific connection to the narrative of lockdown:

In Lockdown 1, Philippa gathered submissions through guerilla chalking of the lockdown love stories website URL in parks: the one place out of our home we were allowed to enjoy, which became the site of lockdown dating.

In Lockdown 2, Lockdown Love Stories collaborated with TFL staff to bring a selection of Lockdown Love Stories to the London Underground. Normally the heart of London, the public transport network became a site of anxiety in the pandemic, and was also a space only accessible to key workers for a time.

Now as Lockdown 3 lifts, this collaboration with Derwent London transforms another casualty of the pandemic ­– the high street – into a site of hope and positivity, reactivating vacant retrial spaces with stories of love and empowerment to have emerged during lockdown.