In March 2020, we saw a flurry of museum closures, gallery show cancellations, theatre shutdowns and empty studios as COVID-19 hit America’s art world. Since then, millions of jobs have been lost across creative fields including music, theatre, dance and the visual arts. Many artists rely on residencies for studio space and community, which are now unavailable. As creative workers are often freelancers or independent contractors, getting unemployment benefits is even trickier for them than for traditional employees. With the lack of substantial federal aid, some organisations have been relying on donations to offer small emergency grants for artists and arts administrators, especially those of marginalised identities who have been most affected by the pandemic. The fine and performing arts industries are among the most economically affected by the pandemic, a fact which one might attribute to the widespread notion that the arts are perhaps the least essential sector for our survival.
However, a scroll through your Instagram or Twitter feed would likely show that pretty much everyone you know has taken on some kind of creative hobby in the past six months. Whether it’s flower arrangement or calligraphy, there is clearly a strong desire for novelty and activity, something to differentiate each day stuck at home from the next. Physical engagement with art as product and activity has risen, as people seek to fill their homes with comforting textiles and well-designed objects. It was impossible to find flour in local supermarkets for a month or so because everyone had decided to take up making their own sourdough. Sewing elastic for DIY masks has been in short supply as well, along with lumber for home improvement projects. People are still spending time and money on the arts, but in ways that let them become active participants, perhaps as a means of seeking agency when so much that is happening is outside of their control.
New York City, USA
Coronavirus-inspired street art is seen everywhere in the city. Photo: Jon Tyson / Unsplash
The release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons – a social simulation game for the Nintendo Switch console – early on in the pandemic came at the perfect time as players sought a virtual vacation from their lives under lockdown. Its endlessly customisable characters and interiors gave its players a virtual space to socialise safely, while working towards attainable goals of owning and creatively decorating their fantasy house, and actually paying off debt. Many users have credited it with helping them stay sane and connected to friends during this bleak and isolating time.
The reach of the arts has further expanded with online programming through the use of live streaming for all kinds of activities, ranging from classical concerts to stage plays. The makerspace that I work at has moved all workshops to Zoom, and other continuing education centres have done the same. The upside to moving everything online is the possibility of reaching people from a wider geographic area, but it comes with the challenge of using only materials that are available to everyone at home. We recently started putting together kits of materials and supplies for participants to pick up, which has led to an uptick in registrations and engagement during classes, with patrons expressing gratitude and relief that our programming remains free and accessible.
So while art is not strictly a necessity, I think we have mostly come to realise that there is not much point in staying alive if there is nothing worth living for.
Even as stay-at-home orders ease up and we’re allowed out on the streets again, it’s easy to get bored of going on the same walks through the same suburban neighbourhood. Seeing a new public art installation outside my local library or children’s sidewalk chalk drawings adds interest and variety to a repetitive routine. Sidewalk art, lawn signs and other forms of ‘guerrilla art’ are also being used to advocate for policy reforms and demand redress for injustices. At home in Singapore, one artist painted portraits of worn-out healthcare workers in their face masks, to honour their contribution in taking care of tens of thousands of infected migrant workers confined in crowded dormitories.
Global Call Out To Creatives
In March 2020, the United Nations (UN) launched an open brief, Global Call Out To Creatives, that reaches out to designers around the world to translate public health messages into creative work. In the first two weeks, 17,000 creative submissions from 143 countries were received. Images: Lleana Da Rin (top) & Barış Cihan Peşmen (bottom) / Unsplashh
Besides the virus, some societies have also been contending with police violence, raging wildfires, degrading living environments, and the gradual erosion of human rights for marginalised groups over the past six months. In America, for example, the institutional disregard for human dignity and environmental justice is old news for those who have been paying attention, but it has been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s flippant response to COVID-19. We are seeing inequality more clearly than ever before, in who can work remotely and flee to their vacation homes in less populous areas (generally wealthy white people), and who is considered ‘essential’ and must show up for work in risky environments without living wages (overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic workers). The American government’s overwhelming inefficiency and misguided use of funds have galvanised activists to step up and organise for important causes.
Watertown Strong Knit Graffiti Project
Watertown Free Public Library invited the public to join together to decorate the large oak tree out front with a Knit Graffiti to beautify the public space and foster civic engagement during the pandemic. Image source: Watertown Free Public Library
In 2019, when journalists and government officials exposed the inhumane conditions of detention camps along the US-Mexico border, individual artists started offering free commissions or merchandise on Twitter and Instagram to incentivise donations to organisations working to protect immigrants and keep families together. This practice continued through to the George Floyd protests at the beginning of the pandemic. As authorities started arresting and convicting peaceful protestors for demanding justice in the countless cases of police shootings, artists turned their attention to bail funds in cities across America. For example, within four days, the Minnesota Freedom Fund received USD20 million in donations, and asked that further funds be diverted to other local non-profit organisations that support Black lives and help to prevent future killings through systemic changes and media representation. Artists, as well as members of the music and film communities around the world, have played a significant role in supporting the movement.
Large publishing houses and literary agents are now actively looking for Black writers and artists to tell their own stories, and media companies of all sizes have put out statements in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. At the institutional level, such intersections between politics and art are more fraught, with several highly publicised incidents in the last few years of art museums facing backlash for showing artwork depicting polarising and traumatising content, typically works by white artists commenting on the murder of people of colour. The subsequent cancellations of controversial art exhibitions have been criticised heavily by many in the art world as cowardly avoidance of current events, highlighting the museums’ reluctance to address the class and racial inequalities that they are built on.
Boston, US
Hosted by Pao Arts Center, the annual arts festival Experience Chinatown aims to uplift the neighborhood and support local businesses with a month-long series of activities including art installations, a community art project and outdoor musical performances. Photo: Taijai Slaughter
Art schools in America are facing a similar backlash, with students pointing out that their uncompassionate response to the pandemic and poor handling of racial discrimination suggest a prioritisation of profit over student well-being. The raising of tuition fees at the Rhode Island School of Design, even as studio hours were limited and classes moved partially online, sparked a petition by students demanding that tuition be lowered to reflect the reduced quality of education during the pandemic. Many alumni, as well as other artists in the commercial arts industries, came out on social media to recommend cheaper community colleges or online resources like Schoolism as alternatives for learning technical skills. They also argued that the value of a prestigious art degree has dropped significantly, as networking on social media has become a viable way to get a foot in the door, with more attention now being paid to the quality of one’s work rather than a brand name association.
As the sheen of exclusivity loses its allure, we are seeing a democratisation of art in who gets to make, view, perform and participate in it.
Public art initiatives are starting to involve more non-artists, like the Residence Lab run by the Boston Chinatown Neighbourhood Centre, which has invited local residents to work alongside resident artists to develop site-specific installations in the Chinatown area with a focus on how they hope the neighbourhood will persevere through the pandemic. Since February, misinformation linking COVID-19 to Asian restaurants and Asian people has caused the area’s businesses to experience revenue drops as high as 80%, the first community here to be affected by the pandemic. Anti-Asian racism has persisted even as the myths have been debunked, and the neighbourhood has yet to recover. In September, the neighbourhood arts centre in Boston’s Chinatown organised a month-long arts festival, inviting local artists to perform in public spaces and create art installations in the storefronts of small businesses, to encourage more foot traffic and community engagement. The hope was that the visual presence and celebration of Asian arts and culture could help people who have been experiencing harassment and fear to feel a sense of safety and togetherness again.
‘Community is Kindness’ campaign
Creative out-of-home agencies Jack, Jack Arts and Diabolical rolled out a community-led poster campaign across ten UK cities. The poster artworks are free to download so that the empowering and positive messages can be passed on. Image source: Jack, Jack Arts and Diabolical
This is a time, particularly in the United States, of unprecedented need. I mean ‘need’ both up and down the hierarchy – the public has expressed a need for art that responds to this experience, which rings through the cries for shelter, security and an acknowledgement of one’s basic humanity. Compared to this, our adaptations at the makerspace can seem woefully insufficient. The pandemic brought into focus the irrelevance, perhaps the obsolescence, of our most venerable art institutions, museums and colleges.
Artists and creators on social media, with the lightning speed characteristic of online platforms, have been faster to reflect the problems facing our society. Social media has undeniably facilitated more cultural discussion and free expression than the institutions that once bore those values as their brand ever did. But at the heart of all this are the artists themselves, reacting as citizens rather than company employees, without forethought or peer review, in real time as history unfolds.
If the larger bodies representing art in our society hope to endure in the society’s consciousness, they must consider and represent all human needs, which come before the need for art.
In concrete terms, what we need is a conscious effort to fund, hire and promote artists and art administrators from a wide range of abilities, ethnicities, gender and sexual identities, and economic backgrounds to ensure that important decisions in the creative community are made with a broader perspective that includes all members of our society. This is probably the most important lesson the art community has learned from the pandemic.
LIANG YI BIN
Liang Yi Bin is a Singaporean artist and bookbinder who has been living in Boston after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration in 2017 and receiving a Diploma in Bookbinding from the North Bennet Street School in 2019. Yi Bin currently helps run a free public makerspace, while taking on freelance commissions and volunteering with the New England Guild of Book Workers.
DECEMBER 2020 | ISSUE 7
Future-Proofing Our Recovery
