This year, upon the fifth anniversary of the start of COVID-19, El Tímpano invited community members to reflect on the pandemic. How did they experience the virus? How did their families adapt? What did they lose, and what surprising changes came about?
The stories below are a compilation of what we heard.
To hold space for these reflections and cultivate collective healing in the process, we partnered with other local arts and storytelling organizations. In partnership with Eastside Arts Alliance we organized a community event, Rayos de Resiliencia (“Rays of Resilience”) to bring together artists, storytellers, healers, health and mental health providers. Los Pobres Artistas, an artist collective, encouraged dialogue through a phone booth installation. The oral history organization, Voice of Witness, recorded and archived first-person stories. Oakland-based poet, Arnoldo Garcia, led a series of workshops in which participants connected with one another as they reflected on their pandemic experiences through the art of poetry.
What resulted was not only a time capsule, but a bridge that traverses diverse and yet familiar experiences of the pandemic.
CREDITS
Reporting: Hiram Alejandro Duran, Arnoldo Garcia, Katherine Nagasawa, Mayra Sierra
Web design: Hiram Alejandro Durán
Translation: Hiram Alejandro Duran, Vanessa Flores, Katherine Nagasawa
Photography: Hiram Alejandro Durán, Katherine Nagasawa
Editing: Madeleine Bair, Heather Tirado Gilligan
