Resist COVID Take 6!

2020

RESIST COVID TAKE 6! sees artist Carrie Mae Weems step away from her signature photographic tableaux and into the realm of agitprop art with a new public art campaign. In this series, Weems draws awareness to the ways in which racial inequities have manifested in the COVID-19 pandemic, with people of color inordinately at risk of the virus. The title, TAKE 6!, invokes the precaution for people to maintain a six-foot distance from one another and speaks to the urgency of Weems’ call to action. In a sequence of commanding billboards, Weems confronts viewers with the realities of this international health crisis while simultaneously providing notes of gratitude to workers within the health and service industries and making direct appeals for people to take preventive safety measures. With emphatic insistence, Weems implores passersby: “WASH YOUR HANDS, COVER YOUR FACE, KEEP A SAFE DISTANCE & GET TESTED!” The powerful text is projected against images that deliver a visceral gut punch. The words stretch across a frame of Black and Brown bodies — those most likely to succumb to this relentless disease.