Items

• 
  2020-07-06

  Mask or shield, Ms. Rachael?

  I have been a theatre educator for almost 10 years, in particular, children's theatre. I have seen, experienced, and done all that there can be done in a field such as this. Before the official lockdown, we were in the middle of rehearsing 5 different productions. Then, the world shut down and everything stopped. Once it was finally deemed "safe" to be back around one another, rehearsals started again and picked up where we left off. The kids were now older, they had memorized this script forward and back while being stuck at home, and they were eager to get back to work and finish their show. We social distanced, always fever checked, washed hands around the clock, and packed every safety measure we could. Before they begun to sing, they asked me which would be okay to use - the mask or their shield. I took this photo at the end of their dance, when the boundaries of social distancing did not apply. I remember when they leaned in to one another, hovering over someone else, I audibly gasped because I had not seen them that close together in so long. This photo will always remind me of how nervous I was to transition back to post lockdown.
• 
  2022-10-31

  Reflecting on COVID19 as a student who started and ended her degree in the midst of the global pandemic. (HIST30060)

  I’ve selected 5 different photos which give a little insight into being a tertiary student during the COVID19 pandemic. I started my Bachelor of Art degree in March of 2020, fresh out of high school. I was so incredibly excited and had a great first few weeks (I think one or two) and O-Week. I was lucky enough to go on a first year Arts student camp in February, where I made a handful of friends that I am still close with today; it was this small social interaction that really served as the bulk of my Uni social life for my degree because ‘going online’ severely stunted my ability to connect with new people. In the screenshot of a Zoom conference call, I am having a zoom call with some of the people I meet on this camp, a kind of ‘reunion’ during the first lockdown in 2020. Reflecting on some of the other limitations on the social life of a young student who is very social, I have included a screenshot of an Instagram post I did in April of 2020. It was my 19th birthday, and my ‘obligatory’ birthday post for the year looked a lot different to other years. Rather than being out celebrating with friends in real life, we did a group zoom call where we sang Happy Birthday and my friends watched me cut my cake through a screen. Some people got dressed up, donning dresses and a full face of makeup, to just wash it off when you clicked the camera off for the night. It was lovely to connect but looking back at these pictures now just leaves me with a strange, eerie feeling. I have included a picture of my university set up, a table in our garden and my dog, Margot. I found it really hard to study in my house all the time, so I would often try to move around to different study zones in my house. I really focused on my study during lockdown, it felt like it was a productive use of time and something I could channel my thinking into. However, thinking so much about University, and always having it in my home (it was not like I was moving between a ‘home space’ and a ‘study space’) was really tiring and draining. Every day just felt the same. I have decided to take a gap year next year rather than moving straight into post-graduate study because I don’t want to feel that same kind of burn-out again. Finally, I have two pictures which encapsulate some pass times during lockdown. One is my sister painting my bedroom walls; we did a lot of home improvement and beautification, giving ourselves little tasks and jobs that we could complete and feel satisfied with. The other picture is my sister and dog on the beach during a winter’s eve walk. I included this picture because her mask is visible. This picture was taken when there were restrictions about the quantity of family members you could walk with, the time you could leave your house, the necessity of wearing a mask and how far you could go from home. When this picture was taken, we had a curfew in place in Victoria (I think you had to be home before 10pm), you could only walk with household members, but only in groups of two at a time, you could not go further than 5km away from your home and you had to wear a face mask even when just walking your dog to a quiet beach. Reflecting on these harsh rules and the feelings I had at the time makes me feel quite sad as I feel like I missed out on so many experiences that I was promised with my university degree. My experience as a Bachelor student was so far from what it should have been; so while I am extremely proud to be graduating in a few weeks, proud that I loved what I studied, felt empowered by what I learnt and feel like my academic skills have improved so much, I feel sad that I missed out on social connection, a sense of belonging to a school community, meeting people who are outside my regular circles, experiences with clubs and teams, not being able to use campus facilities and spaces. I am so lucky that I was extremely privileged in the lockdown, my family was all healthy, safe, we had minimal arguments, and they made me smile despite the circumstances; my friends were beyond wonderful, and I had a safe place to live and access to my university and learning online. But when I think back to the lockdowns and the impact of them, I still can’t help but get emotional. More than anything, I always find myself shocked about what we all went through and how unique it was.
• 
  2022-02-04

  HIST30060: Canberra Test Centre

  This photograph depicts negative popular responses towards public messaging about the pandemic. On the Canberran road sign, a sticker reads, “The media is (the virus) lying to you. Turn off your tell lie vision.” At the bottom of the corner, a sign points towards a PCR test centre. This photograph was taken in February 2022. It is likely that this sticker was posted by a Freedom Rally protester. In January 2022, the Freedom Rally attracted thousands of protesters to Canberra in protest of the government’s response to the pandemic. The “Canberra Convoy” drove from all parts of the country to protest in front of parliament house. While the protesters’ concerns primarily revolved around the vaccination mandate and media censorship, the movement evolved to include all manner of political concerns, including housing affordability, the rising mental health crisis, religious freedoms et cetera. This photograph illustrates how the government measures and media coverage of the pandemic were not universally accepted but rather hotly contested in some places. The Freedom Rally, for example, attracted over 100,000 people to the nation’s capital. The photograph further shows popular anger towards the media coverage of the pandemic. The Australian Broadcasting Channel in particular attracted the ire of the anti-vaccination and anti-mandate movement for contributing towards increased fear of the virus and support for the vaccine.
• 
  2020-01-01

  UC Berkeleyland

  Daily photographic journal golf UC Berkeley during the Covid-19 Pandemic years 2020 through 2022
• 
  2022-07-21

  SMhopes and the Big Blue Bus

  Through a grant from the City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Department program, Art of Recovery, artist Paula Goldman designed five banners based on uploads to the project call page on this website, SMhopes: an Archive of Hopes and Dreams. The banners will run on Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus transit system for the month of July, 2022.
• 
  2022-06-13

  And then they weren't neighbors

  I wrote this story about an elderly man who lost his wife in war and suffers from PTSD. He then hears then news about Covid-19 and becomes more isolated because his family is worried about giving him Covid since he is more susceptible to dying. However, as he is getting lonely he realizes his neighbors are abusing their son, so he decides to adopt the little boy. This is to show how domestic abuse became worse with Covid-19 and how some neighbors were able to connect more than before. Finally he catches Covid and passes away, leaving the boy alone again. However, it ends with the elderly man and his wife as angels together. The objective is to show that death is inevitable, with or without Covid-19, but Covid-19 has made many people's lives a lot harder with the added struggle of financial burden, loneliness, and family struggles.
• 
  2020-03

  Good With My Hands

  I've always used my hands to shape the world around me. Working with my hands both soothes and stimulates, and it feels good to be productive. I've long been known at work for crocheting or cross stitching (my hands can work at those with little help from my eyes) during boring meetings, as a way to keep myself awake and render fruitful an otherwise pointless meeting. I have some very talented hands, if I do say so myself. I make jewelry, I quilt, I cosplay (itself honestly probably 10 or so different skillsets), I etch glass, embroider, play deftly with resin, string art, and perler beads. You name it, these very talented hands of mine can probably do it. If they can't, someone on Youtube will show me and I will figure it out. My hands are always busy. At least they used to be. COVID took that from me. When quarantine hit, that is what was left to me. So that is what I did. Fortunately, crafters are notorious hoarders, so that was one thing I struggled little to find when the shelves at all the stores were bare. Whatever it was, it was already in my craft room. When you couldn't find masks anywhere, me and my loved ones never had to worry. I sewed probably 100 from the leftovers I had from a few of my quilts, fun masks with swirling DNA strands, dinosaurs, and Bat-signals. When we couldn't get toilet paper and mom my had to mail me some from out of state, I sent her a giant cross-stitch of her favorite character (Snoopy) as a thank you for being my toilet paper hero. I didn't stop there though. I had to make videos daily for the kids in my (now) virtual classes. So I went from being the women who crocheted in meetings, to the one who painted herself to look like different characters during meetings. (The first student to comment with who I was dresses as that day only had to do half the day's assignment.) The other meeting participants would periodically make me turn my camera on to check on the progress of my transformation. Crafting was really the only thing left to me, what with lockdowns, my school going virtual, the inability to access basic necessities, and the persistent taboo on leaving the house. Crafting got me through it. I made so many things, simply because I needed to be doing something. I sewed, mod podged, and wire wrapped, papier mached, and glass painted, until every wall and surface in my home (and some in my classroom) were covered. Often I'd have the TV on in the background so I'd have noise for company. I'd craft into the wee hours, because it's not like I could go anywhere in the morning. It got so bad that my housemate (a dear friend and fellow transplant with no family in Arizona, we moved in together a week before COVID struck because neither of us wanted to live alone) Kristen had to stage a crafting intervention of the "No really, we are out of space. For the love of God, knock it off or get an Etsy store" variety. (I then switched to baking because I don't know how to be if my hands are still. I was accused instead of trying to make her fat.) I crafted until I ran out of things to craft. Thanks to COVID, I squished a lifetimes worth of crafting into a year. Now I'm out of projects. If I wanted it, I made it already. If anyone compliments something I made it is given immediately as a gift to them, so I can then go make myself a new one and my talented hands can be busy again for a minute. I've taken to cross-stitching random things my friends say, just to have something tactile to do. My hands remain as sharp as ever, poised for the next project, but the brain that fired them has run out of steam. And I still don't know how to be if my hands are still.
• 2022-05-24

  New Hobbies and a New Normal

  Like many other people who suddenly found themselves at home for an extended period due to the COVID-19 quarantines I picked up many new hobbies which have now become a part of my normal life. In March of 2020 I suddenly found myself unable to go into nail salons that had been closed as nonessential businesses. I found online advertisements for at-home dip powder nail kits and ordered to materials to turn my living room into a makeshift nail salon to do my own nails. The smell of a nail salon is distinctive, and I found that smell filling my living room every time I did my nails. Also in March 2020, my office shut down and the entire staff was sent to work from home. At the same time my kids’ school was also closed and they were sent home for virtual classes. My quiet private office at work was traded for my noisy house with dogs barking, teachers teaching over Zoom, and kids in group videos talking with their friends. With all our usual reasons to leave the house gone I found little escape from the chaos that was now a typical day at work in my house. Looking for a reason to get out of the house I took up running. A few days a week I would head outside for a quiet neighborhood run trading in the sounds of Zoom calls with teachers and kids for the occasional neighborhood bird. Over two years later and life has returned to a version of what we used to call normal. Nail salons are open, I am back to working in my office, and my kids are back to learning in their classrooms. However, some of these hobbies I picked up out of necessity have found their way into my life permanently. I still do my own nails at the house, turning my living room into a nail salon every other weekend. I still go for neighborhood runs a few times a week either before or after a day at the office. While these have become fixtures in my life now, the smell of a nail salon in my living room still reminds me of the earliest quarantine days and when I head out for a quiet neighborhood run, I still recall the peaceful feeling that brought me when life at home was becoming too stressful in 2020.
• 
  2022-05-23

  Relax! I Got the Vax

  This is a pair of socks I found at It's Sugar. They say "Relax! I Got the Vax" on them. This is referencing the COVID vaccines people have gotten. Now, places are selling merchandise referencing it as a way to get more money. Things like this are not uncommon and many big stores will sell vaccine related merchandise. I have no idea how well it actually sells, but there must be some market out there for companies to keep producing it.
• 
  2022-05-12

  Hygiene precautions Mall Aventura

  These instructions are posted on the mirror in the kids' bathroom at Mall Aventura in Arequipa, Peru.
• 
  May 24, 2021

  Chronicles of the Plague Years

  [From the Introduction] For the students, faculty, and staff at Bronx Community College, March 2020 was a sucker punch to the gut. Our vibrant campus, a beautiful haven filled with vitality and life, became a kind of petri dish—ground zero for the COVID 19 virus to make landfall. Not only were many students and staff sickened in those early days, but the City University system was forced to close, then transition to remote learning in the space of a single week. It was a challenge, to say the least: for faculty who needed to quickly learn the tools to make it possible, and even more so for the students, who—cut off from socialization and in person learning—had to adjust to this new reality. Stranded in their homes, some students were forced to continue working frontline jobs, while others lost jobs and income, facing financial devastation. Students were confronted with their own illness as well as that of family members. Online learning was fraught in those early days. As a community, we improvised our way forward, without the proper technology and knowhow to do it. But two years on, our students have proven their resilience. In time, we adapted to remote learning, to new ways of doing things, of coping. 2020 was harder, and in 2021, the challenges continued. But, somehow, we got through. These student books provide a glimpse into the minds of the talented BCC Digital Design students who persevered, strived, and thrived.
• 
  2020-11

  Group Homes and the Pandemic

  To understand my story, I will give some context as to the nature of my work. I worked at a group home made for 14–17-year-olds unaccompanied minors coming from Central America. When they entered the program, they are put into one of the many houses that we currently have and given a room, education, structure, all the things that make for a normal life. These many houses would interact with each other quite frequently, many times, the best friends of one house were in a different house. Many of the kids were in soccer and other sports, they would go to church, and different places in town on a regular basis. Once the lockdowns began, our program proceeded in a similar fashion to prevent anyone from getting infected. One of those things included stopping the normal interacting between the houses and confine everyone to their own homes. Besides the obvious social loss, school provided them with access to English almost the entire day; to make friends here, they would learn on their own, to meet a boyfriend or girlfriend, they would work at it every single day. You can’t measure what the pandemic took away from these kids. Each one of them is no doubt less fluent in English unless they had actively worked at it, they missed out on getting to know the culture and embracing it for their future, so many things that we can not measure, but without a doubt were lost. For some though, the pandemic turned into a very good time for learning and becoming better than they were before. Hours would pass very slowly in the house, and you can only watch and play video games so long before getting bored, so one youth found something that they were very good at. This youth would spend his time crafting all sorts of different things. Eventually, his walls were filled with rosaries, charms, bracelets, animals made of beads, and all sorts of other random crafts I could not name. He had a zest for life even during the pandemic and worked hard to keep learning more and more. The necklace in the picture is one that he had made for me that I hang on my shrine at home. He was a very religious, and it was that religion that helped him get from his home country and make it to the United States. This is a common story for many of the youths in my program, they take religion seriously and try to continue the traditions they had in their home countries. They could not go to Church during most of the lockdown and found other ways to express their religiosity, this is how the youth in my story expressed his.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #30

  I wish that in the future I would have a trillion dollars; I wish the animal the Phoenix would still exist; I wish I had a gingerbread house; I wish I had another cat.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #29

  I hope the future has more nature, and animals can talk. (The bulldozer is tearing down buildings, and the animals are attacking, to make more room for nature.)
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #28

  Help the Earth! We want Covid to end! Stop littering! Stop fires! Stop capturing animals! Stop wasting! Stop cutting trees!
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #27

  I hope I will have a house that can make dinosaurs and more trees, and no fire.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #26

  I hope the world turns to chocolate and I hope the world is eatable.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #25

  There will be shoes with fire shooting out of them in the future.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #24

  Back to the future
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #23

  Me: We can help the earth. Diego: We can save earth.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #22

  I hope for a cleaner world
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #21

  Technology will take over the World!
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #20

  There will be roads connecting buildings in the sky and over water.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #19

  More nature
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #18

  End world pollution
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #17

  In the future I want to be a singer and an artist
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #16

  World peace is one project that we all have to do together!
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #15

  I think that the world can be a better place.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #14

  In the future, I will be a singer and fashion designer
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #13

  In the future, the world will be clean, with no germs.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #12

  In the future I want to be a baseball player.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #11

  Yo quiero ser un jugador de fútbol
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #10

  No taxes, no Roblox, no homework, no veggies, no pollution. Edgar will be President and I will be Vice President
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #9

  Ser el jugador, estrella de todo el mundo.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #8

  I hope that in the future I am a gajillionaire and the world will have high tech cars, machines, etc. All humans will be smart so schools will not exist! I also hope that people will live forever, but that will also mean that people cannot have babies. Which means that we cannot reproduce because the world would be over populated. The world will also have a high technology system named "Operation Last Long" which will allow us to survive when the Sun eats Earth, which will be kind of cool because we will be living inside the Sun. The sight would be cool and I'd be very fortunate to not be melting! But before that happens life will be extraordinary! All food will be brought to the next level! Everybody will have super powers too! And Magic will finally exist! With infinite land, space and etc. with infinite money too! Because then everyone will be gajillionaires! So there will be no homeless people and no one will suffer from financial problems.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #7

  Santa Monica is the future
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #6

  20 years in the future
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #5

  All these eyes will help for seeing things better. Or if you're getting attacked these eyes will help you dodge or more.
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #4

  No more people = no more pollution; it's the truth
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #3

  No violence in the world
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #2

  Let's celebrate our differences
• 
  2022-04-12

  VAP and SMhopes #1

  I wish that I turned into the Flash,
• 
  2022-04-22

  Drawing What I See in NYC

  This is an Instagram post by themeatofit. This is an illustration of someone wearing a mask. The person wearing the mask looks miserable. In the tags the artist uses, he wants the mandates to end. One person, jake._.robertss, suggests that if the person is wearing a properly fitted KN95 or N95 mask that the person will be more protected.
• 
  2020-04-13

  Art by Me

  At the start of the pandemic, the only thing kind of entertainment people relied on was the television or their phone. Like most other high school students who are addicted to their phone, I was one of them. I was always laying in my bed scrolling through TikTok or looking on Snapchat. I mean, that was the number one thing to do. We weren't allowed to be out of the houses, going to sports events because the sad reality was that all of them got canceled. A couple months after the pandemic began, I started to lose interest being on my phone, it was no longer a source of entertainment, more rather repetitive. I've always loved art, drawing, crafting, making things at home. I grew up with an artistic, crafty mother. I decided that I wanted to create panting to hang up in my room, that is how it all began. I wanted to add more decorations to my room, and I admired the fact that it was my own art. Every day, I would sketch, draw and paint a different piece. I honestly fell in love with it, and I realized it was kind of like an escape from reality. I wasn't ever focused on anything else when I was painting, even though I am a perfectionist. I started showing my family members and friends my artwork and shortly after, people were asking me to paint them a custom piece. Of course, I couldn't say no so, I got the opportunity to paint my, soon to be, little sisters name board for her baby room. My family absolutely loved it and so did I. I wanted to expand the type of art I was creating so I decided to decorate my high school cap for my graduation that had been postponed, due to the pandemic. I sketched the outline of a paw print and filled the inside with different types of orange flowers, since I was going to Oklahoma State University and studying in animal sciences, I thought it was fitting. Through the rest of the pandemic up until school started back up and I was off to college, I was creating art. I used to look back at the pandemic and remember all negative moments that had happened, like the second half of my senior year getting canceled and summer not feeling like summer. Now, I feel like I've matured enough mentally to realize that I got to explore more about myself and learn about what kind of things make me happy, something not a lot of people get to do or even realize they can do.
• 
  2022-03-05

  War and pestilence

  I saw this on facebook. In most people’s minds, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is just a continuation of the rolling crises marked by the pandemic.
• 
  0002-03-01

  SMhopes at the SMPL Teen Lounge

  A variety of submissions to the SMhopes website, designed as posters and banners by Paula Goldman, and installed in the Teen Lounge at the main branch of the Santa Monica Public Library. The Library asked for a variety of hopeful messages as they begin having students visit the Teen Lounge again.
• 
  2022-02-25

  The Fall of Covid

  This flower represents the growth I have attained and hope. While the petals represent the things I felt like I lost during Covid. I think it is important for people to see how Covid affected everyone. This may open their eyes or give them something to relate to.
• 
  2022-02-25

  Pandemic Rendition

  The pattern of small, blue, unorganized, squares reminded me of a hospital or a doctor’s office, the first place I would go when I am sick. During this time, it seemed as if everyone was sick, there were no appointments available to meet with a doctor nor beds for individuals who were experiencing peak Covid symptoms. Words that describe a hospital: white walls, clean floors, sterile rooms, and order, or at least it was before the pandemic. The background is far from orderly, red is also present amongst the blue squares. This is to represent our health care professionals doing their best with the knowledge we had about this novel virus, but still witnessing many deaths. There are also green rings hovering around the two individuals. Green is often connected with germs or sickness. In the beginning cleaning products were flying off the shelves, people wanted to clean all surfaces as a preventative measure. This meant that consumers were buying several jugs of bleach, rubbing alcohol, hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, and many other products in surplus (creating many shortages). The air around the two individuals is filled with images of the Covid-19 virus under a microscope. Masks became a way to protect oneself from catching the virus, ultimately leading to mask mandates. The two individuals facing one another represent the mass separation we experienced during lockdown and with social distancing.
• 
  2020-04-20

  Mask Bag

  This image captures a bag of masks that a doctor (my mom) carried with her during the pandemic.
• 
  2021-12-05

  Five Pandemic 2021 Edition by Sebastian Delgado, dps