Social Studies 101
Resist COVID Take 6!, 2021
Billboard Project, 2017
African American, Latino, and Native American communities have been disproportionately impacted by the deadly virus, COVID-19. Through a public art campaign, we are promoting preventive measures and dispelling harmful falsehoods about COVID-19, while also paying homage to front-line and essential workers who have placed themselves in harm’s way. This artist-driven project is called RESIST COVID TAKE 6! The “TAKE 6” in the title refers to the recommended six feet of separation in social distancing.
The project, conceived by Carrie Mae Weems and Pierre Loving, brings together a diverse group of artists to project our voices in a way that underscores what’s possible and brings the general public into a conversation of heightened awareness of this problem. The goal is to better the communities in which we live.
“We’ve all been impacted by COVID-19. It’s an ecological health crisis of epic proportion—an international disaster. And yet we have indisputable evidence that people of color have been disproportionately impacted. The death tolls in these communities are staggering. This fact affords the nation an unprecedented opportunity to address the impact of social and economic inequality in real-time. Denial does not solve a problem.” —Carrie Mae Weems
In the summer of 2017, Carrie Mae Weems with three emerging artists, Tanya Rice, Jo Shonalda Jackson, and Petra Szilagyi, embarked on a project to photograph those aspects of Syracuse which one is not likely to find in the city’s own promotional images. In these photographs, they captured the willfully unseen people and circumstances that constitute the reality of one of the United State’s most culturally rich, yet economically impoverished and divided cities. While these images are specific to the city of Syracuse, the circumstances they portray resonate throughout the country.
The culmination of their photographic project was a series of digital billboards on display in the city of Syracuse that featured their images and pieces of text written to speak to and about the city’s underserved populations.
You can send a tax-deductible contribution to:
Social Studies
Carrie Mae Weems
501 W. Fayette Street, Studio 205
Syracuse, NY 13204
Contact us at ssprojects101@gmail.com.