Items
Date is exactly
2021-01-29
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2021-01-29
Freedom of Speech
A comic strip about Covid-19 -
2021-01-29
Pizzalley's Chianti
Signs could be found outside Pizzalley's Chianti Room showcasing the current emphasis on mask-wearing after the events of the Covid-19 Pandemic. -
2021-01-29
Apart for Eleven Months
This year, my daughter’s Girl Scout troop, like every other troop in the country, has moved their cookie sales online. Even cookie pick up is strange this year. Instead of having families come by and pick up cookies to sell, I leave the cookies on the porch with the receipt and wave through the window. When my best friend (and co-leader) came with her daughter to pick up cookies, we chatted through the window and took a picture to save the bizarre moment. I mentioned that when another family from the troop came to get cookies, I almost didn’t recognize the girl because she had gotten so tall. My best friend then had the genius idea to take a picture of her daughter by my front door. She said I should take a picture of my daughter so we could compare their heights, as they have been the same size their entire lives. And then she said a statement that shocked me: “I mean, it’ll be a year next month since they’ve actually stood next to each other.” I guess since my best friend and I text almost every day, and have seen each other over Zoom, I hadn’t processed how truly long it has been since we’ve all been physically together. I met my best friend when I was 11, we were college roommates, married guys we were all in the same friend group with in college, had our first kids exactly six months apart from each other, our second kids two months apart from each other, and live 15 minutes away from each other. We have been lock step since we were kids, so not seeing each other for almost a year is insane. As the picture shows, our daughters are still basically the same height, so even apart, we're still lock step. Still, hoping we’ll be able to be together again before the girls grow anymore! -
2021-01-29
Bridgerton: The Musical
While the pandemic has prevented live performances from taking place, it has not stopped musicals from being written. Based on the Netflix hit show “Bridgerton,” two young musicians, Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, have written a musical together, which they shared on TikTok. It quickly went viral, starting with a couple songs before expanding into an entire score, and it quickly gained followers and supporters who loved the songs and even posted videos of themselves singing along. The future is unknown for this musical, but it is inspiring to see how young composers and performers are still finding artistic outlets despite being unable to perform in a theater at the moment. -
2021-01-29
Coronaland
With Carnival parades cancelled, somebody had the bright idea to start the Krewe of House Floats to (a) make up for it and (b) to possibly offer work to unemployed float artisans. The results have gone beyond everyone's wildest imagination with 5,000+ people signing up in New Orleans, surrounding parishes, and around the world. This is a detail of an installation that shows how many people are feeling these days, “Cuckoo from COVID” -
2021-01-29
Coronaland
With Carnival parades cancelled, somebody had the bright idea to start the Krewe of House Floats to (a) make up for it and (b) to possibly offer work to unemployed float artisans. The results have gone beyond everyone's wildest imagination with 5,000+ people signing up in New Orleans, surrounding parishes, and around the world. This installation, shows how many people are feeling these days, “Cuckoo from COVID” -
2021-01-29
Coronaland
With Carnival parades cancelled, somebody had the bright idea to start the Krewe of House Floats to (a) make up for it and (b) to possibly offer work to unemployed float artisans. The results have gone beyond everyone's wildest imagination with 5,000+ people signing up in New Orleans, surrounding parishes, and around the world. This creation, at 430 Harrison Ave., gives the perspective of the crowd and advises people, “Six Feet when possible Y'All”. -
2021-01-29
Keeping Alberta Rat Free
Alberta has been historically known for two things, number one being the oil and gas industry, the second being Alberta’s lack of rats. Alberta historically prides itself on being a ‘rat free’ province through extermination campaigns throughout the whole province in order to maintain the mantle; and to protect Alberta’s agricultural sectors. Because of this legacy, Albertan pandemic skeptics on my home town’s Facebook page posted this meme in reference to people reporting large gatherings, and businesses which violate quarantine restrictions. Underneath this photo, many people who thought alike had a good chuckle and patted themselves on the back for keeping Alberta ‘rat free.’ However, these pandemic skeptics forget that Alberta became ‘rat free’ by people reporting sightings of rats, using the local 310-RATS hotline which alerted exterminators to the presence of rats throughout the province. This item matters to me in that it is how pandemic skeptics impose falsified history, and possibly Albertan nationalism to justify their own behaviour as somehow patriotic. I know I’m reading into this too deeply, but I find it somewhat funny how ignorant these people are to the true reality of our ‘rat free’ title, that we achieved it by reporting sightings of rats which posed a danger to our entire province; just how these people are posing a threat to the health of our entire province by opening businesses and getting together in large groups. This is mainly supposed to serve as a window into the Albertan experience of the Pandemic, with specific interest to the anti-masker’s opinions and thoughts on social media. I want to similarly point out, that I wasn’t the only person who noticed that Alberta was made ‘rat free’ by ratting on rats in this photo’s comment section. -
2021-01-29
A different kind of anti-mask rally
This post is pretty important to me, in a lot of ways, mainly because of the fear it’s evoked in me, or anger, both probably. This is an advertisement for the ‘Walk for Freedom’ event, to take place outside the legislature building of Edmonton, in Alberta. This is supposedly an anti-mask, anti-lockdown movement however it would be incorrect to assume that this movement only had once face. In reality, the Albertan anti-mask movement has large components of white-supremacists, fascists, Nazis who have been seen at several previous anti-mask rallies throughout the province. During these events, local businesses which enforce social distancing, those with masks and reportedly visible minorities are subjected to verbal and physical abuse. Organizations such as the Proud Boys, The Sons of Odin are all present at these events and eagerly recruit pandemic skeptics into their groups by binding the cause of ‘freedom’ to that of bigotry and hatred. I know my description of this event seems bad enough, and may have your head scratching with how I’m essentially saying this rally is going to be full of neo-Nazi’s and white supremacists, but I just want to point out the most glaring issue present within this advertisement. Those people marching, that photo is from the ‘Unite the Right’ march in Charlottesville in 2017, they actively chose that image – and the historic fascist imagery of a torch march to be the face of their movement. Essentially, this isn’t very tongue and cheek anymore; there is going to be a fascist march on my province’s capitol. Already, counter-protestors are organizing to show up and face these people in the streets. It’s even more concerning when police and governmental figures are not saying a word about this march, we have no idea if they’re prepared for what’s supposed to come. I could go on for pages, but, I’m just scared. Alberta desperately wants to be like its southern neighbor, we elected a man who markets himself as a fiscal conservative in the shadow of Donald Trump, who has a history of advocating for restrictive policies directed towards the LGTBQ+ community and we had people take to the streets as the American capitol was stormed. They were waving American flags and thin blue line American flags, it’s just insanity, I don’t understand these people. I’m adding this to the archive because I just want to try and illustrate the tone of politics in Alberta, in regards to our pandemic skeptics. From my perspective, the anti-mask movements down in the states appear to be relatively simple, entitled and ignorant people marching for their ‘rights,’ mistaking inconvenience for oppression, I’m aware there is also a stark politicization of masks down in the States. However, here there’s a more sinister tone to it – it’s become embroiled in conspiracies of a ‘great reset’, anti-Semitism and infiltrated by organized Fascist movements to gain larger bases. I feel as if I’m rambling, but there’s just so much to say – I hope it doesn’t turn into anything as similar as America’s January 6th or Charlottesville, I hope people don’t show up. -
2021-01-29
Four Wensdays in January
This is a meme my friend shared in our discord, it recounts the absolute insanity that was January of 2021. The first image is of the failed coup attempt by enraged Trump supporters, white supremacists and fascists; who all stormed the capitol building with little to no resistance. While inside, they defaced the building, broke into offices and hunted for Vice President Mike Pence to hang for ‘betraying’ Donald Trump. The second photo came in response, depicting speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi holding the article of impeachment for Donald Trump. While it was argued that this was a pointless endeavor as Trump was virtually leaving office in a week, the main goal for impeachment was to prohibit Donald Trump from holding office ever again. The third image is the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States, this event was made possible by the presence of the national guard, where 21,000 soldiers were deployed to make sure nothing as similar as January 6th could occur. The streets were empty as roadblocks and military utility trucks cordoned off the area, massive fences were erected surrounding the structure and soldiers patrolled the area. Largely, it was believed there was going to be nationwide attacks on several capitol structures throughout the nation in response – yet nothing of substance happened. The final image, and my favorite, would be the assault on Wall Street. This is an insane story, so I’m going to be a little less formal but this is an incredibly significant event, it is an instance of effective class-warfare. I’m not going to explain stocks, but essentially what happened is hedge fund investors made a bet that GameStop would fail, they took several ‘shorts’ out on this company to profit from this bet – however, redditors on r/wallstreetbets caught wind of this and thought “what would happen if their bet was wrong,” they began investing heavily into the company, raising its value, and as a result, costing the hedge fund billionaires thousands. These thousands in losses became millions, then billions, as more and more working class and middle class people threw themselves onto the market, to eat the rich. It wasn’t about profit, about making a return, it was a message. Eventually, this fiasco showed Americans that there essentially is no such thing as the ‘free-market,’ as these large hedge funds began blocking people from purchasing stock, forcibly selling peoples stock, using their own funds to facilitate an artificial ‘scare.’ People lost so much after the initial manipulation, but it proved that the market was only free for the rich, that once anyone else began to emulate the fraudulent strategies of the wealthy elite, they would be struck down. This is currently on going, but I cannot stress enough – it is not about money, it’s about sending a message that people are done. It’d be funny if the federal government intervened on behalf of wall-street by bailing them out, before sending out those measly 2k stimulus cheques. For the archive, this photo represents the pace in which everything moved in 2021, and the absolute absurdity of where we are today. To think, when this began we were planning on a few weeks at home, we’d make sour dough bread, then we began missing our friends and family’s – then we were in the streets marching for civil rights, and the ability for people not to be murdered by police because of the colour of their skin, fascists stormed the government, the ex-president is being impeached, again, now we’re trying to destroy Wall Street, this pandemic is absolutely wild. -
2021-01-29
Virtual School in the Pandemic
This drawing shows my mostly normal morning during the pandemic. -
2021-01-29
Self Portrait
I made a self portrait of myself with a mask on. I gave myself no facial features because I feel that when I have a mask on I feel invisible. During quarantine I have had lots of time to think and reflect on everything and that has helped me grow as a person. I have also had time to think about all the things that are happening externally like I have grown taller and have moved up 3 shoe sizes. I think in this isolation it has helped me grow, inside and out. -
2021-01-29
A summery of the beginning of Covid- 19
A lot happened in the first weeks of quarantine. We adjusted to a new way of life at home. We developed countless memes, and binged many hours of Netflix. We were in a dark hour, and so many of us teamed up to pull through. We dusted off the old tambourine to celebrate the healthcare workers on the front lines, risking their lives for us. We started organizations to feed the hungry, and made masks from everything short of the computers we used to stay connected. And connected we were in a way we have never seen before. We had virtual reunions, lessons, and dinner parties. There were ups and downs, and swerves off the beaten path. We marched for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and all the other black lives that were being ended every day. We fought to overcome the stigma that surrounded the Chinese, for being dealt the hand of the virus first. There have been so many Instagram posts, Tik Toks, and Tweets. We ran out of toilet paper. We developed vaccines, with others on the way, and we are distributing more and more every day. Although COVID- 19 has taken so many lives, eventually, with hard work we will beat it. -
2021-01-29
My House Cage
I made this clay sculpture This represents my house the people stuck in the cage is me and my family I have been stuck at my house and cant go out but I get to be with my family all day because we are all stuck together -
2021-01-29
Computer
covid sucks and its killed people in my family -
2021-01-29
A Covid interview
it said how covid is impacting us. 1. How has the pandemic changed you? I have always known that humans are vulnerable but the pandemic has allowed me to feel each day how vulnerable we are and I am changed by this felt experience. Life has become more immediate and I think about safety in a more conscious way. 2. What has the pandemic brought with it? I don't understand this question... 3. Describe your experience over the past year in 3 words. Surprised, disciplined and curious. 4. What are some silver linings you have found in the past year? An abundance of family time, connecting with my cat, learning to paint, mastering pizza on the grill, deepening my yoga practice, less busy and alot less driving. 5. How has the pandemic emotionally impacted you? A whole range of emotions- sadness, grief, fear, disbelief, hope and concern. -
2021-01-29
Letter to future generations - Pandemic experience
I submitted a letter or my experience of this pandemic. The reason why it’s important is because it tells my experience of the pandemic and describes what affect it had on me. It relates to the pandemic because it tells a story of how I feel during it. -
2021-01-29
Nostalgia in the Pandemic
For those who have been on the Internet for longer which is the norm, many will remember what memes were in their early days. This Twitter has been working on showing them off to cause both nostalgia and a tinge of nausea from things that have been sleeping deep in the back of some people's mine, including my own. -
2021-01-29
Dear Future Generations
This story tells about the experience of one young person during the pandemic, and their perspective on the future. I wanted to include this to highlight the perspective of young people, and especially to highlight how I am not satisfied with just going back to normal. -
2021-01-29
New York COVID-19 nursing home deaths may have been undercounted by as much as 50%, attorney general says
The New York Attorney General says that the official number of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes maybe 50% below the actual number. However, the state's Health Commissioner disputes this claim saying that death statistics are determined by the location of death. Therefore, any nursing home resident that dies in the hospital is counted as a hospital death instead of a nursing home death. There has also been an investigation launched against several nursing homes that are sided to have violated COVID-19 protocols.