Emma Huerta Flores
I’ve been having a hard time digesting the time we are currently living in. Everything, every day moves faster than ever expected, and so slow all at once. I take the time every day to meditate, and take time to pray, honor, and respect the people who both put their lives at risk for the greater good, mostly poor Black and Brown people on the frontlines, and those who have no choice. In that same breathe, I try to honor those who have passed, which at an alarming rate have been Black folks. My project aims to honor those stories in a way which both engages the audience in an act of remembrance and humanization of the stories of folks lost, and critical conversation about ways we are all responsible for each other in these times. Fully aware at the ways institutions have set up the structures of power that make the harsh realities of COVID-19’s impact on our communities in the ways they do, I still believe that critical analysis of our own part in minimizing its effects is useful. My project would involve me handmaking masks for people who want one, wherein the mask would be embroidered with a story, name, and photo honoring people lost. The art is both in the making of these masks, that work as walking altars for those lost, and in the practice of their movement.
The mask is to be worn out, where people would carry out their essential tasks, with both the assumption that people would feel compelled to read, but cannot because that would require breaking social distance guidelines. Many scenarios can happen, but my hopes is that it engages conversation, wherein the reader can share with a stranger at a distance the story of one of the people they carry with them. The masks would be photographed in use by the owner, and the photographs would be hosted on a site dedicated to memorializing these people and their stories. The people who receive a mask, I would hope also share the site if asked by strangers, helping share stories and also remind people that this small act of staying 6ft away has such large implications.
I feel compelled to make this work because of my own spiritual practice, and desire to honor those lost. In many ways, this moment for our communities is larger than many of us can foresee, but we definitely feel. I think about my grandmother, and the many elders who feel that God and God only will keep them safe, which voids the argument of personal responsibility to our communities, in the same wave, I think about our youth and their negligence or disdain for lives other than their own (these are generalizations obviously, but my project aims to fill those gaps). I think the idea of walking altars can bring a lot of healing, not in the general way we think, but for our dead as they pass on, often dying alone in hospitals, without the usual sense of closure we get in sickness. Carrying their stories and them with us, for those who participate, I hope will let them know it is safe to pass, they are loved, were loved, will be honored.
I feel compelled to make this work because of my own spiritual practice, and desire to honor those lost. In many ways, this moment for our communities is larger than many of us can foresee, but we definitely feel. I think about my grandmother, and the many elders who feel that God and God only will keep them safe, which voids the argument of personal responsibility to our communities, in the same wave, I think about our youth and their negligence or disdain for lives other than their own (these are generalizations obviously, but my project aims to fill those gaps). I think the idea of walking altars can bring a lot of healing, not in the general way we think, but for our dead as they pass on, often dying alone in hospitals, without the usual sense of closure we get in sickness. Carrying their stories and them with us, for those who participate, I hope will let them know it is safe to pass, they are loved, were loved, will be honored.
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