Four IPU academic staff got creative during lockdown

IPU academic staff Mark Webster (rear), Stephen O'Connor and Gareth Williams, launched their chapbbook, A Life Without Touching, on the IPU campus.

Book launch for A Life Without Touching was a roadshow around the IPU campus.

IPU academic staff Mark Webster, Stephen O'Connor and Gareth Williams rode the campus golf buggy and launched their chapbook.

Chapbooks were timeless books of jest and tales that often sprang out of folklore.

The contribution in the book by Miss Dust at the All-Staff Meeting, Johanna Aitchison, was in the throes of her PhD and unable to attend the launch.

A Life Without Touching came out of a couple of weeks into the Covid lockdown.

Webster said frustration emerged after a couple of weeks.

"I found it traumatising.

"I don't like working on computers at all."

However, that was the only way to communicate with their students.

There were lessons to be learned, and in that learning they found something creative.

Most of the pieces in A Life Without Touching were inspired by the lockdown.

Williams has eight paintings in the book, and says the chaos around Covid inspired the cover painting Becoming.

They said the impermanence of life jolted them into what defines life, and the book is a snapshot of emotions.

"Once we got over the frustration, we appreciated the space and time."

With the book completed, the men found a release in the campus launch.

"It was theatrical, outlandish, we were no longer academic.

"It helped loosen the boundaries."

A Life Without Touching is in the National Library, has an IBSN number and is a limited edition of 75.

If you would like to win the Manawatū Guardian copy of A Life Without Touching, in one sentence describe something creative you did during lockdown, and email to: merania.karauria@nzme.co.nz.