Team Talk: Lisa Eri & Victoria Iles
Lisa Eri & Victoria Iles are a creative team from Norway, currently working at Anomaly in New York.
They met at school 5 years ago and have spent a ridiculous amount of time together ever since.
On creativity, life and work before COVID hit
Lisa - I don’t remember life before Covid.
Victoria - Yeah, it’s hard to remember how things used to be, I’ve gotten so used to working from home. But I remember being more stressed and having less time to do my laundry.
The biggest change has probably been not having Lisa sitting next to me every day, but we’ve made it work through G-chat and Facetime.
On how COVID has changed their creativity, life and work
Lisa - Not being able to go into the office or even sit at a café to work, I’ve had to be creative with where I sit at home.
I find that new surroundings often inspire new ideas, even if that means I have to sit on the rug in the bathroom to come up with something.
I think the pandemic has given creatives more time to make stuff they’ve been wanting to, but I’ve spent my time relaxing, catching up on TV series and biking around New York.
I set a toy car on fire and took photos of it. It turned out pretty sick! But that’s the only creative thing I’ve done outside of work during this time.
Victoria - I actually got a small studio in a warehouse just up the road right before Covid hit, so I spent a lot of time there the first couple of months working on my own stuff.
I make collages and build still lifes from found objects, and not having to commute everyday gave me more time and energy to do it.
My friend and I made a zine too. The theme was “quarantine”, and we asked creators from all over to submit work that was lockdown related. We called it “Quaranzine”, hehe.
How they feel about the future of creativity beyond COVID
Lisa - I’ve seen how much good work that can be made from the comfort of your own home and would love to see a better balance between remote work and office work in the future.
I’ve been feeling a sense of peace that I haven’t felt since before I started working in advertising, and it’s something I want to hold onto.
Victoria - I agree. I definitely feel like I can concentrate better when I’m at home. The open office environment can be really distracting, especially if you’re an introvert like me.
But there’s pros and cons to both of course. I really miss seeing and interacting with people physically. Exchanging a few words about life with the people you work with every day makes you feel social and “human”.
But then again, being able to have the first meeting of the day in your pajamas is also really great. And having your fridge at arm’s length…
I think a lot of the people who were sceptical of the idea of people working from home now realize that it’s actually not a bad thing. I’d love to see more freedom in that respect.
If you want to work from home a few days a week you should be able to, because I think we’ve proved that we can be just as, if not more, productive when we’re allowed to manage our time more freely.
I work better at night, so for me it’s been a blessing not having to work normal hours every day.
About getting inspired when most of their time is within the same four walls
Victoria - Browsing the internet or going for walks. Reading bad news and good news.
Lisa - Listening to a lot of new music, Taiwanese psychedelic music especially. Check out Mong Tong! Also biking around the city and taking in your surroundings and people watching feels refreshing.
Advice or words of support they would give to creatives in quarantine who are struggling with isolation right now
Victoria - I’d like to let other creatives know that it’s ok if you’re not feeling super inspired or motivated right now, and encourage people to focus more on taking care of themselves (especially mentally) than making the best work they’ve ever made.
And remind them that helping real people directly will always be more important than helping corporations sell more products.
Lisa - What Victoria said.
You can find Victoria and Lisa on the web here and on LinkedIn here and here.
