I have been listening to CIDRAP’s Osterholm Update podcast regularly throughout the pandemic. I often do so while working on art projects. It was only a matter of time, then that it would make its way into one of these projects. “We will get through this” is an often repeated phrase on the podcast. We will get through this, but it’s crucial we work together, acknowledge this is our “COVID year” and “stop swapping air.”
Each of these is made with about 100 little blobs. A few weeks before I made these, I had cut out 545 little pieces of paper to make a visual marker of the 545 children who remain separated from their families due to the current administration’s actions at the border. I grouped them in groups of 100 (and then 45) to keep track. I wanted to turn them into something else, but wasn’t sure what. As I was playing around with 100 of them on a sheet of paper, this concept popped into my head. So, in many ways, from something hopeless comes something hopeful.
We will get through this.