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​The concept of déjà vu covers a wide range of experiences -- all of them connected to memory. 

 

As the global pandemic saga continues into its third year, there is a déjà vu sensibility to the experience, as wave upon wave of pandemic restrictions are loosened only to be re-instated again, ad infinitum. 

We have become weary of this apparently unending biologic war.

 

Yet in COVID's wake, the attack of Russia on Ukraine, the destruction of Ukraine's cities and the resulting humanitarian crisis has triggered a heightened response by the global community  to this immediate and existential crisis.

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Though each of us has our own personal experience of the pandemic, we are also to varying degrees being faced with the horrors of the war in Ukraine.

 

Both existential crises have the potential to trigger our personal and collective memories. One memory researcher posits that déjà vu may be just one manifestation of the adaptation of human memory to enable us to not simply recall the past, but to develop predictive powers needed for survival.

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We are seeking visual art, poems and short-short stories or essays that explore the concept of déjà vu in the contexts of the Covid pandemic, of the war in Ukraine, and other already seen experiences of this phenomenon of human memory.