Interview with Liz Parks

 We were very fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with Liz Parks, an art advisor working in the city  and mother to Lily. This interview was one that was very important to us because as we started to realize that we were focusing too much on changes in businesses, and less on changes in culture, we realized that it was necessary that we speak to real NYC citizens who experienced the pandemic. 

Liz runs her own art advisory, and for anyone who does not know, that means that she has her own clients who she assists in finding art for their homes. This means that her job involves a lot of traveling to see art fairs and clients, and a lot of visiting local museums. We asked her questions about her job pre-pandemic versus now. "My job in the end didn't change that much, the only difference is that pre-covid I went to art fairs all around the world all the time and those all shut down," Liz explained, but she went on to say that these art fairs are actually beginning to open up again. Art Basel in Switzerland is one that is supposed to be up and running again this year. She also spoke to us about her clients and their purchases in a time with our large art fairs, "the fact that they didn't occur was counter balanced by the fact that a lot of my clients were sitting around their homes with not a lot to do, with no vacations or things they would usually spend money on and so they  sat around looking at their blank walls thinking 'oh maybe I'll collect some art!'"

Next, we asked Liz about art galleries and restrictions. Similar to many businesses in NYC right now, she explained how you had to either have an appointment or had to sign in and give your information for contact tracing for covid. With the larger art fairs though, she explained how they were much more strict with rules, "With Frieze they were very strict with policies to get in. You had to get a covid test and upload it to their portal or show your proof of vaccination before you could go into the fair, and they limited how many people could go in at a time. Normally its very crowded to go to these things, and it was not crowded."

Our conversation with Liz was very interesting and we learned a lot about her personal experiences in this pandemic, which relates back to our essential question about the culture changing in NYC. Liz explained how maybe these changes aren't even so negative (at least for her).