To make life easier, the individual has created/adopted a public version of their identity, which is more or less dependent on the relationship with the one with whom they interact. Society has shaped us so that we adjust our behavioural characteristics and visual image according to the various situations in which we find ourselves, purposely or accidentally. Our public image in the global world and with the advent of social media has become such a significant part of each of us that we have begun to forget our authentic selves, which stem from the environment we come from, from our childhood interests that have not been curated and questioned for appropriateness, our families, upbringing, trauma, etc. Who are we really when no one is watching? What surrounds us there where no one is watching us? What would be the source of our inspiration if we shut ourselves up in our homes, turned off our mobile devices, turned off the internet and closed off access to public life?

In 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the unimaginable happened – overnight, public life stopped. We were physically (but not virtually) cut off from most people, things and interests we have taken for granted. We found ourselves in the (un)safe embrace of four walls, and at first we were speechless, as we did not know how to navigate the newly emerged situation.The University of Ljubljana reacted extremely quickly to the new reality, even before the complete lockdown, employees had to establish a way of communicating with students via online channels and accordingly adjust the curricula, the work process, the method of handing over information and knowledge, so that students wouldn’t take too much damage. At the Chair of Textile and Fashion Design, OTGO, at the Faculty of Natural Science and Engineering, where the emphasis is on practical work, we faced a particular challenge: how to provide students with enough creative starting points for the implementation of projects and how to encourage creative thinking in the given situation? What does it take to realise their ideas? How do we replace everything tangible when interacting in the virtual world?

Through an adapted learning process and projects, we encouraged them to provide personal responses to the new reality, which could serve as a means to overcome uncomfortable feelings and inspire the design of products that were exceptionally significant for physical and/or psychological protection in those moments. Individual processes revealed many fears of the unknown, anxieties about lifestyle changes, challenges in reuniting with primary families and establishing new roles, as well as needs for physical contact and the resulting fantasies.

On the other hand, they were encouraged to explore the culture of the places where they grew up, folklore and associated customs, and to (safely) connect with older generations who could pass on to them the old skills of various handcrafts and techniques that Generation Z was almost unfamiliar with. Through this process, they began to discover their identities, what excites them (positively or negatively), their values and what defined them as individuals up to that moment in their lives. In addition to responding to the situation, overcoming it and analysing their roots, an important part of the research was also the limitation in the form of the four walls of their intimate spaces, where while growing up, they collected objects that intrigued them visually or in terms of content. With the latter, they more or less consciously created their universe or multiverse - visual pieces of inspiration that, at that moment (and will continue to do so), represented artistic inspiration and starting points for creating conceptual hybrids. Through physical fragments from the past, be it souvenirs from travels, sports props, stuffed toys, colours of old clothes, patterns on bedding, the texture of a houseplant pot or the shapes of shadows cast by a wall light, they emphasised the most important ones that still influence their view of the world and creative processes today.