30 March, 2020
From
virtual pottery classes (yes, really) to coding boot camps
to pasta-making livestreamed from
Italy, we’ve found 11 ways for you to remain busy and stay
connected from the comfort of home.
Londoners listen up. Missing your weekly fix from Bread Ahead?
The much-loved bakery is holding Instagram Live cookery classes
throughout the week. Tune in at 2pm GMT every day for masterful
tutorials in everything from grissini to amaretti to good
old-fashioned chocolate brownies. Visit its website to see what the
pastry chefs have planned for the coming weeks and for a breakdown
of the ingredients needed.
Remember that guitar you demanded as a teenager but never so
much as plucked? It’s time to dust it off. BRIT-Award winning Laura
Marling is taking it back to basics and sharing step-by-step
beginners tutorials on her Instagram page. Each video is just under
10 minutes long. It’s not a course so to speak, but a fun and easy
way to get the creative juices flowing. Laura’s home is exquisite
and there’s a calm cadence to her voice which is oh-so-soothing;
just watch that you don’t fall asleep mid-tutorial.
You couldn’t ask for better hosts, than 84-year-old Nonna Nerina
and her granddaughter, Chiara. A week before the class, you’ll
receive a list of ingredients and links to the relevant equipment
you might require. It’s an exclusive affair. Nonna’s recipes aren’t
pulled from any cookbooks; they’re palimpsests of family
traditions, passed down through generations. Each livestream lasts
two hours and costs around £80, though keep your eyes peeled for
discounts on the website.
You’ve been telling yourself you’ll learn your HTML from your
CSS for years now. If there were ever a time to get your geek on,
it’s now. General Assembly offers online full-time and short
courses with professional tutors and course assistants in subjects
such as user experience design and front-end web development. Test
the waters with one of its single classes or day courses; some of
the introductory sessions are free of charge.
The
Institut Français de la Mode has opened up its course
“Understanding Fashion: From Business to Culture” on FutureLearn
(more on that later). Those with an eye on the industry can treat
themselves to a handful of virtual lectures with representatives
from Jacquemus, Saint Laurent, LVMH and others, as well as Sir Paul
Smith himself. The aims of the self-proclaimed “Massive Online Open
Course” are two-fold: to reflect on fashion as a cultural
phenomenon and to examine it as an industry.
Kana Clay
Parlour usually operates out of a workshop in Hackney, but it
has now moved its pottery classes online. Before you ask, yes you
do need to buy a few bits in advance. All the requisite tools can
be bought in a bundle on Kana’s website – you can even opt to have
a bottle of wine or scented candle thrown in too – and will be
delivered to your door before you start the course. A hunk of clay
and all the tools costs £35. The first series of classes (three
workshops in total) will be free, though a small £10 donation
wouldn’t hurt… We’re feeling calm and collected already.
This masterclass from the epoch-defining
literary legend is broken down into 23 separate short lessons
and accompanied by a digital workbook which is crammed with lesson
recaps, assignments and supplementary learning materials. Don’t
just stop there. Buy an annual MasterClass membership for £170 and
you’ll be able to stream unlimited courses from some of the world’s
most successful industry insiders – Dr Jane Goodall, Massimo
Bottura and Hans Zimmer among others. It’s not like we’re short on
time…
This image is on holiday
FutureLearn is a hefty online resource for those looking to
brush up on their university studies or to explore a new field
entirely. A smattering of top universities and cultural
institutions from all over the world have uploaded digital short
courses completely free of charge. Try a flexible short course;
each lasts somewhere between two weeks to two months and requires a
few hours of study time per week. Most are free, though you can pay
a little more to qualify with a certificate. “Farm to Fork:
Sustainable Food Production in a Changing Environment”, anyone?
Coursera is similar to FutureLearn, though it’s more focused on
the American market. You’ll find hundreds of free courses on its
website, each of which lasts between four and six weeks. Much like
FutureLearn, if you stump up around £32 you’ll get access to a
range of learning materials and eventually graduate with a
certificate. We’ve earmarked the “In the Studio: Postwar Abstract
Painting” course at MoMA and the series on biohacking your brain
from Emory University.
You might have heard of Ryan Chetiyawardana. He was the brains
behind the former Mondrian London’s famous Dandelyan bar (named
2018’s best bar in the world) and is the cocktail maestro in charge
of
Lyaness – the no-less dazzling bar now found in the basement of
Sea Containers London. Interested in emulating his alchemy? Follow
@lyanessbar on
Instagram, where he’s sharing cocktail recipes for those stuck at
home. So far, a boozeless hot toddy and DIY martini. Stay
tuned.
Skillshare is a precious skill-sharing hub for creative types.
Featuring graphic design and photography through to marketing and
entrepreneurship, it offers all kinds of expert-led courses – many
of them are free and all are professionally produced by Skillshare.
Its photography courses offer great intel for
Instagram junkies, including ‘Dark & Moody Food Photography
for Instagram” and “How to Create a Cohesive Instagram Feed using
Adobe Lightroom”, for instance.
