Copy Link
A year of COVID completely upended nearly every sector of the arts. How have you gotten by?
(Illustration by Vida Kuang)
A year ago, on the verge of shelter in place, country singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash offered an encouraging reminder to the world’s artists, writers, musicians and other creatives: that “when Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote
Looking back now, things didn’t work out quite so well for most artists in today’s pandemic. With jobs lost, income evaporated and safety nets thinner than ever, the Bay Area’s arts sector was lucky to simply hang on (let alone write a 350-page tragedy).
Current projects: “The Lost Art of Dreaming,” including “The Dictionary of Joy and Pleasure” (micro-commissions to 10 artists seeking a source of pleasure for every letter of the alphabet); “Video Postcard” series
“Our most recent project, ‘Boys in Trouble,’ did sharpen focus and shift direction upon the election of the last administration. The emboldening of white supremacy and specifically proudly anti-trans, transphobic values and strategic planning by the administration meant that I really wanted our project to stand up and speak back to that.
“(‘The Lost Art of Dreaming’) also is informed by living through this last administration. We had very little time to dream or imagine or feel joy or pleasure. It felt really important and radical to begin the project during that administration to of course continue organizing, educating and fighting back but also to claim the importance of joy and pleasure and dreaming in our lives.”