 Good evening friends, we're going to get started in just a moment. Hello hello. And if I could get someone from the audience to just acknowledge and chat that they hear my voice and see my screen that's always helpful to us. I've also placed in the chat box a link to tonight's library announcements. And you can watch this event again on YouTube. All right, let's jump in. Thank you all for being here tonight. I'm very excited about tonight's event to hear about the artists that worked at SF COVID command center and to hear about all of their work they did for our city. First, some library announcements and news it is summer stride this event is part of our big summer stride celebration and it is not just for kids it's for all ages. So participate you can do your summer reading and get your 20 hours in and receive receive that iconic SFPL tote bag. And our artwork is featured right there in that slide, and it's by the amazing Kailani Juanita Bay Area person, and just has a new book out called on Chronicle books, and it is our selection for this summer stride. Welcome you to the unceded land of the Eloni tribal people and acknowledge the many groups and families as the rightful stewards of the lands in which we reside. Our library is committed to uplifting the names of these lands and community members from these nations. I encourage you to learn more about first person culture and land rights. We host lots of events. And we have a resource and reading list which is in that chat link that I put in the chat box. Lots of things happening this summer to reading initiatives I want to tell you about total SF. And we will be doing quarterly book clubs with them. I'm going to be talking about 24th Daniel handler, Gary Kamaya talking about the end of Golden Gate get the book now. We have a by monthly read we're encouraged all of San Francisco and Bay Area to read the same book. So July and August we've chosen Jacqueline Woodson read at the bone. Woodson is typically a children's and YA author, but she has written adult titles as well. And she will be at the library, the virtual library, October, no, sorry, August 12 talking about her YA and youth books. So come check that out. I don't know if you know that our library is one of the few libraries that has a jail and reentry services department. I'm really so proud of the work that they do there it's a small and mighty department. They do all of reference by mail from west of the Mississippi so it's a lot of reference they do and then they also serve the jails in San Francisco. So we have two programs this month with their department and partnership with Oakland Public Library, Dr Kesha middle mass and Ruben J Miller will be discussing the politics and racism of reentry. And that is next Tuesday so please come check that out. And we have lots happening this summer I'm just sliding by I'll mention this one the Mexican Museum, Sophia Solis, Solis on mayhem be Zanel his artwork is so amazing so come here about his work. Sunday the 25th academics on the Black Panther, you can't miss that it's going to be good. And we partner with SF neon, the letter form archive and tender one museum to talk about neon and matchbook covers and one last program from our jars department. Like I said I'm just amazed and proud of the work they do. We have our friend Troy Williams who partnered with director and producer to make the prison within and we'll have a screening and a film discussion afterwards. Alright, short and sweet, and I will again add links to the chat box, and we will have time for q amp a tonight please use the q amp a function and we'll get there. And now I want to turn it over to make shifter galleries director for the San Francisco Arts Commission, and during the pandemic. The city of San Francisco in the role of arts recovery liaison to the joint information center of the coven command center disaster service workers unites make shifter everyone. Thank you, Lisa. And so much to the San Francisco public library for hosting this event tonight. I'm very excited to be here alongside a bell Jimenez and Renee Jones, and a one man. Unfortunately, our fourth cove a command artists and residents bow rid of but could not join us this evening. I want to let you know about the format of the evening we're going to. I'm going to say a few words, and then I'll introduce each artist in turn, and they'll talk about their experience at cove a command and the work that they produce during their residency. I'm so excited to hear them talk and see many works from their portfolio. I'm going to give you a little background really quick if members of the audience aren't familiar with what it means to be deployed realize that more than 12,000 city employees were asked to report for duty as disaster service workers, anywhere from a few weeks to some serving for over a year. We served in a variety of capacities within the city's coven prevention and response effort. And finally, for the better part of the year I served as the arts recovery liaison at coven operation headquarters, representing the unique concerns of our arts community, which was disproportionately impacted through the closure of museums and performance venues and community art spaces, and more. The joint information center, which inside of code command was like their communications hub, and with the supportive leadership around you, Francis Samora and Kristen Hogan and all of the amazing staff at the joint information center, the community or the jik. We produce three distinct programs that provided incredible opportunities for local artists to participate in the recovery effort and amplify prevention messaging to our community. We commissioned eight artists to create designs for 20,000 cloth masks that were produced, and we distributed them for free through cultural district offices, testing sites shelters, food hubs, and community organizations. The second project we manifested through the jik was the commission of a mural in the missions clarion alley by local artists Elizabeth Blancas. It's an incredible mural and it'll be up for two years I encourage all of you to go and visit it. When you're strolling through the mention. And the third project, you're going to find out a lot about tonight. It's the production of the nation's only artists and residents program at covert command, something we're incredibly proud of. So our four artists and residents to photographers and to comic artists representing diverse cultural heritage communities were in residence at covert command at Moscone. And they were provided unique access to the city's operation, and we're allowed to decide what stories they wanted to tell we didn't dictate the stories we let them find the stories both inside and outside of covert command that really resonated with them. The resulting portfolios of their work will be entered into the San Francisco public libraries can covert community time capsule, and will serve as reference documents forever. Thanks to this incredible partnership with the library and the vision of city archivist Susan Goldstein. I also want to thank the San Francisco Arts Commission for partnering on this artist in residence program. The Arts Commission, you may not know this and now you do has an ongoing residency program placing regional artists inside of various city departments. So partnering on this unique opportunity was a natural fit. So the artists in residence program was a real collaborative effort between the Arts Commission, the public library and the covert command operation. So that's a little background on the residency. And I'm going to first introduce Mabel Jimenez. Mabel is a mission resident who studied photo journalism at SF State. For seven years she served as the photography editor at El Teclote, a free bilingual newspaper based in San Francisco's Mission District. She is now a freelance photographer working for community organizations and various news outlets such as California Native News, Mission Local and SF Weekly. She exhibits her work regularly at such venues recently as Somarts and the front page gallery at City College. She has curated the photography exhibition, Latino Life, dedicated to the Bay Area Latino experience. My incredible pleasure to introduce artists in residence and my friend Mabel Jimenez. Get away. I may. Thanks so much for having all of us here tonight to kind of share what we've been going through. I'm really excited. I'm not sure where to start. But I guess so we started this training and getting to know what covert command was all about in December. And it's it's really interesting how things have changed so much. When this residency started I really wasn't sure at first what the story was right that that was going to be told and sometimes these things just kind of start revealing themselves as you go along and I guess I got to photograph a lot of the roll out of the of the scene and and it's been really interesting that we started in January right after a really bad spike in Kobe after the holidays and all that holiday travel. So it was kind of a dark place but at the same time it was a really optimistic place and so. So a lot of the images are kind of reflective of being able to see that light at the end of the tunnel so even though they're their photos and recordings of a pandemic. I think there's a lot of positivity there there's a lot of resilience there. And I did a little bit of documenting first within covert command. And a little bit of what what it's like to you know for for people to work there and all the people that are kind of behind the scenes and as we progressed on I wanted to I decided to focus my coverage basically on my neighborhood I live in the mission and the mission was really really hard hit especially early on in the pandemic where a largely Latino neighborhood and you know during the really bad times of the pandemic. About 50% of the cases were Latino folks even though we're only 15% of the population so I'm kind of surrounded by that here. So I started seeing my neighbors volunteering and initiating things and getting involved and volunteering at the vaccine sites at the testing sites at the food distribution sites. So what I'm sharing and what I'm documenting has been really close to my heart I don't normally document in that way the people that I know but in this case it felt it felt right and I just want to ask our moderators if I should if I should go on or if I should pause or if I should share my screen at this moment and share some of these images. So go ahead and share your screen mobile and then talk us through the story that you're building. Okay. So this is more of a sneak peek right now I kind of still have to go through a lot of photos that I've taken tonight I'm not I don't have a lot about for example the food distribution sites, or the testing sites but I do have a little bit of what is inside COVID command, as well as what it was like at the vaccine sites so I'm just going to start sharing some of these photos so these are, you know the posters that we've all seen everywhere in the city there was an army of people, putting people together everywhere in all kinds of languages with all kinds of messages. So, we got to see a little bit of that effort coming together with their maps and all their strategy and hitting the neighborhood that right there happened to be also the mission this is all. I'm going to take a quick within 10 minute walk of my house so this is really, this is my neighborhood. You know distributing city workers distributing all these posters and all this information throughout all these businesses. A little bit of COVID command there we have some people from the Department of Emergency Management giving a tour to to Mirna Milgar the supervisor here wearing a white mask she was recently elected as one of our district supervisors so she was going to Carter where she was getting a tour of the space. A photo from very early this year. What would you like to do in 2021. A little bit of the strategy there can be seen in the right hand side, some of the documents that information or collateral as you guys call it that was produced to inform people. One second. The photos that you were just looking at. We're all inside of COVID command, and this was special access this was not allowed to be photographed on a daily basis by other photographers so our artists and residents, you know, their big rooms with people it does some people doing but that these images are very special because it's a look inside of the operation. I just wanted to make sure people know where these were cited mobile. I'll let you continue thank you. Oh yeah no thank you for the clarification yeah because there's a few few locations going on and yeah this is basically. I think it's correct to call it a like a think tank and well the strategy and logistical organizing happens. And then we kind of moved a little bit into the rollout of the vaccine, and this is at the mission testing site on 24 street and this was the first day that that particular site was open to the community. And it was mostly open to seniors at that point and some health workers. Again, this is all this is all like a 10 minute walk from my home so it's, I was really happy to be able to to documented and all the health workers were so accommodating and welcoming of me you know there. There's so much going on, especially those first few days of the vaccine being rolled out that to make space for me in their workspace. I was just incredibly appreciative of that. It's not always easy doing this kind of job and then on top of it have someone clicking away and getting close to your face so. So I'm incredibly grateful at all the people that allowed me the people that were also not just the health workers themselves but the people receiving the vaccine who very kindly signed photo releases, so that we may be able to use it. And here's just one example of, I just felt like really good energy, every time that I was at one of these sites, it's really hard work for all these folks. But there was always moments of positivity as we can see with this young man's mask on the right hand side, sending positive messages as much as possible. Now here we're back inside COVID command in this photo. This is Victor Lim and he is from the Department of Emergency Management and he also let me kind of shadow him one day for a few hours and he was working on giving out messaging to the Chinatown community. This photo was taken around right before Chinese New Year and so there was a big campaign to kind of get people to stay home and not be tempted to go out into the streets and into crowds. So he's kind of working on that in this meeting. And you know it's very reflective too of the experience that I think a lot of us had right of working from home and having to stage ourselves and propping our laptops, certain ways and setting up our station so this is again COVID command. This is at City College just a friend of mine, my landlady getting her her vaccine at the drive through site. And here we're back in the mission site. Again I'm just kind of, I hope that the photos here show how hard people were working and how, how grateful a lot of these patients were and how precious this vaccine is and how precious it was treated. And those especially those first few weeks that it became available. You could really feel the way that the workers handle the vaccine. I mean, it's this literally this life saving choose right so I'm hoping that this really conveys how how seriously everybody took their job seriously but in a positive way. Here we have the area where people were waiting after getting the vaccine and one thing that I think was really appreciated was making these vaccines accessible in a really low barrier culturally appropriate way a lot of this work was done with the city coordinating through the Latino Task Force. The Latino Task Force here in my neighborhood has really come up as an example of what community emergency response. And I don't say that just myself this is this is something that I actually heard people at San Francisco's Department of Emergency Management say that the Latino Task Force has to be an example to be followed in future emergencies just by the way that they breach this gap between services that the city's trying to provide and how to actually effectively get them to people. So you know one of these things is making these things accessible at a neighborhood site. This is a photo that I like and it stands out to me we have a veteran senior here waiting for his vaccine and we have a young health worker kind of with that tension on her on her legs and knees to kind of you know it's to me it's a subtle way of conveying that effort and that strength that these health workers have and how accommodating they were to everybody even when people showed up or too many people showed up for the vaccine they would take them on these shuttles over to SF general to get a vaccine if they weren't any more available at the mission site and so we would have these very committed workers again helping everybody make sure that everybody that wanted a vaccine got one. This is another photo that really I really like because it's it's a moment of gratitude from this person who just received a vaccine herself. And then before she leaves she she breaks an applause to all the health workers. And again some glamour shots of the vaccine itself. And I really dedicated health workers. And again some people from the task force and Unidos and Salud is just a partnership between UCSF and the Latino Task Force and a lot of other community organizations that made sure that we got that they got all these vaccines out to the people. So they're here they are in a little break. More people in the mission site getting a vaccine. Some of these amazing workers. I'm not sure if I'm taking too much time I trust that someone will let me know, but I do want to say something about some of the workers and maybe not necessarily the health workers that were administering the vaccine I mean obviously that that's a huge job. But there was also people just kind of make making sure that things were running smoothly that people were standing in the correct lines. And a lot of these folks are folks who lost their job. This this woman whose portrait we're looking at right now. She's a person who was cleaning houses when the pandemic started, and she lost a lot of work and then she started volunteering through the Latino Task Force and eventually became employed in helping kind of run the program and and control traffic sort of speak. This is another person who was working for the day labor program. So he's a he's a day laborer who again lost a lot of work, but found himself doing something completely new. And so that's that's one thing that really fascinated me about hearing people's stories a little bit is that everybody, unless you were already a nurse or worker, a lot of people started doing something completely different during the pandemic, and how they translated those skills into the work that needed to be done now. So a lot of them, for example, were I met people who were like event organizers like like nighttime concert organizers who ended up, you know, organizing the logistics behind this. A personal friend of mine who his name is Atticus Morris he's also lives in the neighborhood and he works with very vulnerable populations and formerly incarcerated individuals and people struggling with addiction and all kinds of things and so he as a health worker he's getting his vaccine in the early times there. Again my friend Linda Wilson and getting her second dose of the vaccine. It's interesting to as an example of how I guess challenging it was in different communities to roll out the vaccine. My friend Linda Wilson she she got her first dose at City College but then had a lot of issues scheduling her second appointment so we just walked over to the site on the 24th and just walked up and they helped us figure it out and they got hers her, her second dose of the vaccine right there so we waited less than an hour from the time we showed up not knowing what's going to happen and her actually having that second dose in her arm so I really can't stress how amazing these workers are and how accommodating and committed to their work. And I think we're getting to the to the end a little bit so I'm just going to scroll a little bit quicker. Let's see this this one kind of improvisational things things were built as as they were going along so you see here this worker kind of moving some chairs, some folding chairs to accommodate people being proud to get vaccinated I hope we can keep seeing more of that enthusiasm. And the mayor here on the day that the site on mission and 18th was opened. And, and I think it was a coincided with the day when people under 18 were able to get the vaccine so he would see a young person under 18 getting her dose of the vaccine and the mission. And that's my last photo thank you for for for giving me the space to share a little bit of what that experience was like. Mobile. Thank you so much that was amazing. I have a couple questions for you but I think I'll save all my questions until the end just to make sure that everyone has time for their peace and conditions and we have time for some questions from the audience. I'm going to ask you one question now because it specifically to you. When I asked you, when I invited you to join into this project, you had a response that was really related to being called into service. Can you talk for a minute about that because that response was really, really an incredible testimony to why you wanted to do this. Yeah, um, you know when the pandemic started it's, you know, it's hard to conjure it up now how how surreal it all was. And I think a lot of us felt like I want to do something, but I'm not sure what you know I don't have a lot of resources and I, you know I started documenting a little bit in my community in my own way but I wasn't sure if it was really. If it was making any difference. And then you know around November of last year I got a message from Meg on Instagram and when then we talked on the phone and as you explained this to me, I just really there's no there's no world in which I would have said no to something like this, because it was that opportunity to be like I can be useful I can do something and knowing that, you know these photos and not just mine but photos from from Renee and the illustrations that go and by Juan are going to be seen and preserved forever is is incredible and you know now we're going looking back at photos from the pandemic 100 years ago and learning from that, and knowing that people are going to learn from 100 years from now is it really kind of satisfied that need to feel useful and and yeah I think that that word I use was to serve the opportunity to serve through whatever it is that you do. And in this case we were asked to serve through our art and through our creativity which is really, you know, it is a little bit of a dream come true so I was very touched and yeah I some parts of it are still not real to me but I can't wait to have this everybody's work be accessible for everybody in the library for generations to come. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm going to move on to introduce our next presenter, who is a one man's a one as a professor of English at Mills College in Oakland, a lifelong artist she works in acrylic ink and digital collage. Awan has participated in solo and group exhibitions throughout San Francisco Bay Area and across the country. Her work has appeared in several digital and print media outlets including NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times. She is the author of two scholarly books, inventing black women for Ken American women's poetry and self representation 1877 to 2000. And also before Harlem and anthology of African American literature from the long 19th century. She is the author of several comics and zines also, including a blues for black Santa, the ancestors Juneteenth, the little book of big black bears. So I want to turn this over to Awan who had a really unique and amazing residency experience and I can't wait for her to tell you all about it. Here's to you Awan. Thank you. Thanks and thanks again, Meg for inviting me to be a part of this it's been a really unique and wonderful experience. My experience of the residency was unique because I was sheltering in place and because my partner is immune compromised I didn't feel like it was a good idea for me to spend time in Moscone, particularly as we were experiencing a surge and so Meg was kind enough to work with me to figure out a way that I could be in residence, but remotely. And, and so it was just a really unique experience that I thought reflected a lot of people's experience of working. And during the pandemic, and I was able to meet some really remarkable people I contacted people make connected me with some folks. I did some cold emailing to people and was able to meet with an interview people on zoom. And based on those are zoom sessions. I transcribed or had transcribed our interview text and also was able to create portraits based on the still images I was able to pull from our zooms, as well as asking the folks who I with whom I spoke to send me reference photos if they felt like they would be more comfortable with that. But almost everyone said hey just. You know, it was actually is about about half and half some people said okay here's some photos some people said no not so much just use the zoom. And it was just a really wonderful immersion I was. I was, I thought it was really special how connected I was able to feel to the experience of being deployed to be a person who is not usually doing pandemic related work to have that transform that transformative experience. And those are I learned a lot from the people with whom I spoke and, and like mobile, I would love to show you some of what I was able to create. And so I will share my screen. And it'll take me. There we are it does a little countdown. And, and so I have done the number of portraits and what you'll see is that my portraits also include a lot of words. I too was really moved by the fact that these images will be a part of San Francisco's historical record, and that you know 100 years from now, when people are researching what it was like and how the city and it's, it's employees and residents responded to the COVID-19 pandemic that these artworks may be part of what they use to understand and so I wanted to include images as well as text from the interviews and so as you can see with my first drawing and I'll talk a little bit about this person as well. There's a for each drawing I have a portrait at the center, and then in a lot of different directions that almost kind of frame each face. I have the various quotes that I was able to pull out of our interview that illuminate some unique thoughts and ideas each person had and each person shared with me about their experience so the first person. I included in this slide show one of the first people with whom I spoke with Cheryl Dericott, who was one of the artists who was invited to create masks and African American artists Cheryl does wonderful work she. She's also a city planner and as you can see with each drawing. I included either to the left or the right of their face the name of the artist, the work that the artist, or the name of the person. They're not all artists, the work that they do in their daily life, but their specific role during COVID-19. And so Cheryl Dericott is a visual artist and also a licensed city planner. During this pandemic Cheryl was one of the designers for the masks on stay strong initiative. And I will scroll to the next slide. So I just, as you can see I always include one fairly large quote that's kind of summarizes kind of the umbrella quote that describes the experience, the one of the main observations of the person with whom I was speaking, and then a lot of other. I mean there was so much that everyone said that was really interesting, really profound I was really I was quite touched by how people willing to open up and just share what this experience has been like. I could have filled a page with just quotes and no portraits, but I wanted to include as much as possible and, and in a way that once again frames the portrait with the words and so what Cheryl says here is what makes a city is the energy, being able to walk down the street go to the bookstore, grab a bite to eat meet a friend at the coffee shop or go for drinks. All these things that we associate with city life suddenly came to a screeching halt. I wanted to speak with people who were working in all capacities, and so I spoke with some people who are working in covert command managing various parts of the city's response. I also spoke with artists like Cheryl Dericott, and there's another artist whose portrait we'll see in a little bit. And I also spoke with people who work with agencies that were that had special relationships with the city of San Francisco, during the pandemic that still actually have these special relationships to do certain aspects of the work that the city needed to have done or needs to have done during this unusual time and this very difficult time. But I also wanted to make sure to speak with people who are, who are working the front door of Moscone. You know who are seeing people come in and go out every day and who may have a longer term relationship with the building than some of those who were deputized or deployed. And so Danny Pan from the sheriff's office was kind enough to speak with me and, and we had a really interesting talk he's one of the folks from the sheriff's department who sits at the front desk and and provide security for covert command. And I have a quote from Danny that I wanted to just highlight. I'm not sure why that didn't show up but the quote that I will highlight is, I saw how things can change from a robust city. And then, all of a sudden, a few weeks in San Francisco was completely shut down. What was interesting to me was that he was born and raised in San Francisco. And so to see and have the experience of seeing the entire city close down was something that he could reflect on for a lifetime of knowing San Francisco and he had never seen it before. So it was a very powerful thing to hear him say, as he says, it was weird I was born and raised here in the city, and hotels and the whole area were completely empty that was really mind boggling to me, seeing it that empty, and that dead. And let's see the next this is the first drawing I made Robin Takayama who was also my first interview. And I think Robin maybe present so I just want to say thank you Robin for being so such a great interview and a willing subject, and Robin also works is the program officer at San Francisco Arts Commission, but was an account manager food coordination group in COVID command and so doing something very different during COVID-19 out of COVID command than usual, but had some had some really interesting observations to make about why her work in the arts was very much applicable to the food coordination group work that she was doing and the quote that I want to highlight today is, people think that artists just make beautiful things. And really artists and arts organizations are so committed to their communities. I've seen them just do amazing things during the pandemic. And I think that community connection was something that was so great about this residency that it really was a way to kind of perform and enact my connection to the community, even when I couldn't be out in the community in the way that I prefer to be. Robin was was was also someone I spoke with I think it was my third interview. And I, you know, also works in San Francisco Arts Commission in the galleries program, but was research manager for the Department of homelessness and supportive services during the pandemic. And says a general misconception about arts and people who work in the arts is that their skills are very limited, but artists are problem solvers. And, you know, for, you know, there, I suppose one could say that for many people this was an opportunity to kind of demonstrate the degree to which the arts has a direct connection to almost anything that the city would need during this time. And Ron Saunders is another is the other artists who are one of the other artists who was brought in to be a designer for the masks on stay strong initiative, like Cheryl Derek up. And Ron Saunders is a San Francisco based artist who lives in the Bayview and who I've known for a very long time I've known Cheryl for a while as well, but it was really interesting to actually sit down and talk to them about this experience of being in San Francisco during this time, and seeing of all San Francisco is a constantly changing city, but the kinds of changes that have taken place over the last year and I have, we're new to everyone. Because I'm glad I did it. The masks did the masks on stay strong project something I really want to pursue is doing functional art, but the fact that this was being done for impacted communities made it to that much more important. Tommy McClain and I'm not going to share with you all of the drawings, but I just want to highlight a few here. Tommy McClain was one of my favorite interviews. I enjoyed everyone with whom I spoke, but what I thought was particularly interesting about Tommy is how this experience of being deployed transformed his life. He was formerly the senior investigative analyst for SF Ethics Commission, but was deployed and served as deputy group lead for SF COVID food coordination group, and was absolutely transformed by the experience he's an attorney by training and by practice. But as he says, I have been absolutely transformed by this work that my effort during my work days is to try to get food to people makes a lot of the legal work I've done in the past lack urgency. It was such a profound experience for him and his energy and enthusiasm, when he was talking about that was just really it was really amazing to see is one of those instances in which something that's such a difficult thing and people were deployed because the city is part of a global crisis, and yet to see that this becomes a kind of an illuminating moment for some as well was was a bright spot. And I just want to mention that for they include a lot of collage elements in these portraits and Tommy's shirt is a collage of the different signs created for distribution around the city by the by COVID command. And I think that is, I think that's the last of my drawings it didn't update as much as I thought it would. But I think I'll stop right there. That was a wonderful, wonderful selection from your portfolio. Thank you so much. I'm seeing some of these for the first time tonight along with you and I'm thrilled to see friends from COVID command and artists in the community, and it's a beautiful portfolio and I can't wait for it to join the archive. Thank you. We'll come back to question Q&A at the end I'm going to move on to Renee Jones. Renee is a photography instructor and gallery director at Sixth Street photography workshop, where she has been a member since 1995. She joined the project during during a time when she was on the edge of homelessness, and now she teaches the beginning photography class and instructs in an advanced photography studio lighting portraiture and gallery show presentation. She is a self taught photographer who has also studied art therapy at San Francisco State University. And I have worked together in the past, mounting Sixth Street photography workshop exhibitions at City Hall, and I was really happy to engage with Renee in this residency project and I'm thrilled for her to share her portfolio of really special images so I'll pass to you Renee. Well, thank you. Hello everyone. So, it was really interesting to get to hear from Meg, I hadn't seen her in a while. And when she asked me if I wanted to be a part of this project I definitely was interested, but a little freaked out because I am in one of the, what do you call it, the groups that most vulnerable to the COVID-19. So I thought about it, and I just found myself more and more just getting so excited about what it would be like what stories I could tell about working in this project, doing photography very specifically. So I do mostly black and white film photography. But of course I have been doing digital especially since coming to teach at Sixth on seventh gallery, which is an offshoot of the Sixth Street photography workshop. So this project, when I first came to Moscone Center, I was just blown away by how huge the space was. It was a space that I had not been in and you know just to know that there's Moscone South and Moscone North and Moscone West and, and all of them I guess are that huge. You know, it was just kind of amazing to know that there were so many spaces so many rooms. And just so much was filled with all this equipment and people and product having to do with COVID-19. So I'm going to share some of the images that I took. Oops, let me see here. And share my screen. So this is of course the entrance to Moscone Center and just being there and seeing the hustle and bustle and, and how the traffic flowed and how everything was so organized and coordinated and everybody was working so diligently together and how people were really making an effort to take care of the older people and, and making sure that they felt safe and comfortable. And so it was just one of those things that made me feel like everybody was so committed and really had their job down pat, even though I suspect that it was a new process of sure they were deployed there and some part of what they did in their regular life is why they were deployed there. But of course, this situation is also new for, for us. So, Renee, can you make these images full screen we're sort of seeing the image with the menu below it. Okay. Sorry about that. No problem. Let's see how to do it the way. Okay, so how's that. We're still seeing that the group of them that you're scrolling through with the menu below it. We try and press your space bar right now and see that makes it bigger. Yeah, actually, I don't see it on my screen. Yeah, your screen. Yeah, it's like the space bar is not even on their space bar on your keyboard. Press that and see what happens. Nope. So the space bar goes away until I mean the menu bar goes away and it's not even on my screen unless I move up so I sorry I don't know what to tell you. I don't see the images they're small. They're so beautiful I was hoping that we could get them large maybe we could just take Renee how would you feel about going out and coming back in, in terms of the screen share. Sure. I think we have time and we've all, we've all been in zoom situation so we'll just take a minute and see if we can, we can see those images a little larger. So if you have, oh, there it is. That's beautiful. I don't know what I did different. It's perfect I'll turn it back over to you. Thank you Renee. Okay. So this, as you can see is the long one of the long hallways that basically has all of a lot of material. It was distributed throughout the city. And as you will notice, my images I chose to do them in black and white, because I thought that it might help you get into the image that much easier. So, and also of course I love black and white. So let me see the next image. So this is all obviously new to me. He's doing fine. I think it's best to see the images big so take your time. Okay. One of the things that I really enjoyed was how much people made a point of taking care of themselves at COVID command center. And this is a cut out of a character from the Christmas invasion. And it's so it's this cardboard cut out. We're not, we're not seeing the image. We're seeing you. You're doing fine. Okay, we'll see if you can share. You just need to share screen again Renee. Maybe that's just what I did. Oh, technology. So, only yes. It says share screen. Okay, no. There we are. Okay, so we're back at the small menu, but I think if we're comfortably there, I think you can stay there and we can see the image so beautiful big but I feel like we're in a, we're in a, we can get a flow right here. Yes, sorry. So like I was saying, so this character is a part of I think a British program and so she has this character up and she also has at her desk site. And she is a seasonal effective disorder lamp just to make sure that if you're always indoors and especially during the winter that you at least get some sun so she made a point of not only having her, her seasonal effective disorder lamp and her pad on the floor feet. Don't get tired, but also having this character by her side so I thought that that was just kind of amazing that people would do that. So they here's a Christmas tree that they decided to decorate for Christmas. And she has all of the various things that have to do with coven, including the caution tape and some mask and stuff like that. And you can see that right. Yes, we see. Okay. Okay. So this is Tanji. And she is one of the San Francisco human service workers who has been deployed at the coded command center. And here is another interesting image in that people are making good use of the space when they need to do something like stretch or yoga. Here it is. And I think that the area just is definitely well suited for taking care of yourself. This is a picture of Dr. Fauci. So here are images in the Bayview district. I basically chose to photograph in a lot of the black communities. And this image here. They decided to make sure they got their vaccination. So they said, well, we'll meet up here. So the guy who kind of jumped into the picture, he wanted to take a picture of his friend as he got his vaccination. Of course, the buttons and that they give out after you've had your shot to this one here. These are some of the volunteers from the Rafiki coalition. They were helping out at the Southeast City College site. There definitely was a need to have vaccination sites at places where people felt really comfortable. So the third Baptist church opened up its space to people in the neighborhood wanting to get vaccinations. But you know, anyone could come there. It was just that they wanted to make sure that people were comfortable and they got counseling, even if they weren't going to get a vaccination, they got counseling in terms of understanding why it was important. But it was quite wonderful to see how no one was pushed into getting a vaccination. They had a lot of opportunity to ask a question and just get free, you know, get helpful information. This is a barber shop. And as a lot of people may not know, barber shops and beauty parlors are very important in the black community. This gentleman here, Mr. Lewis, he has been certified to dispense information to take blood pressure and give information on health issues specific to the black community. And so he's very proud of the fact that he has people come there not only for their haircut and to, you know, shoot the breeze, but also to get good information that will help him help people in the end. This is actually a group of performers known as sky watchers, and they did a performance having to do with COVID-19 in the black community. And it was just a very powerful performance. But I think that that is the last image. And so I will stop sharing my screen, which I didn't do very well, but that's life. Thank you Renee, thank you so much. That was actually really interesting. We didn't get to see your photos large and they're so stunning when you see them full screen. However, we did get to see you actually scrolling through all of the images, and then we got to see at the end you had a sheet of thumbnails. It's a little insider view on what photo editing looks like and how photographers organize their images. And that was maybe a look at the whole portfolio that's going to the library. A larger piece of it so that was like a little sneaky thing that we got to see more than you even plan. So that was great. Technical zoom thing. But you know, I'll get there eventually. So today I'll start with with my question for you and then I'm going to, I'm going to ask a Juan and a bell, a question each as well and then we'll turn to the question I see that we have a question in the q amp a which is a really good one and we'll, we'll go to that and what did it, what did it mean to you personally to go through this experience of being both inside of covered command, and then representing the city out in community all of the artists and residents had these vests that said covered command artists and residents on it and what was it, what was the experience like for you if you're going to sum it up briefly. It was exhilarating in one word. I'm surprising. First off, it was amazing to be asked, and partly it's because I'm an older person. And so I thought, you know, who would want to hear in terms of that sort of point of view. You know, so that was really interesting that, you know, the point of view from someone like me would go into archives. So anyway, that was really exciting and amazing. It's very strange things that I came across as well as the new bits of information watching people how creative they are how helpful they are how even how scared they are, you know, but you know just to walk down the street and you see a tree full of mass that somebody put out there or to see food that people have left on the stoop. It was definitely unexpected, but you know, just wonderful. The other thing is that, especially in the black communities. It felt like home, you know it felt very much like there was this richness and this, this vibration of energy that I think had to do with everybody coming there to help. And so that it was just really powerful to be around that kind of energy. Thank you so much for sharing. Yeah, I want to check in with you and ask how much more time we have I have basically one question for each artist. And then we have time. We have. Okay, as long as the artists have time. Okay. I wanted to ask you the next question. So when we were talking about this residency, we were talking about the fact that so many people were trying to ask for accommodations at work, so that they could stay home and be a caretaker to their elderly, take care of their own health circumstances, all of these things that made so many people around the world, try to operate in a productive manner from home. And so I thought to myself how could an artist do a residency at home, but I think it was so reflective of so many people's experiences. So you touched on it briefly in your presentation but can you talk a little bit more about sort of representing that demographic of people who were homebound. Yeah. Yeah, it's what's interesting to me is that several of the people with whom I spoke during weekdays were home when I, even though they were not technically working from home all the time they were working from home most of the time. So it was a very different. And when somebody is because people were at home, I feel like we, they could be relaxed and just have kind of more kind of luxurious conversations I guess, in terms of what they could share and, and just just being able to kind of exhale and talk in a really comfortable atmosphere. So I think it made my process a little bit easier than maybe if I encountered people on their way in or while they were at lunch trying to grab a break. I think that it would have been a very different experience if I was attempting to do a residency from home, but every but no one had that experience, but because most of the people with whom I spoke were working from home part of the time. That was something, and it's something that most of us don't do normally. I feel like that really created a sense of connection that I was pleased to have since I could not be in the same workspace. So that was really, that was really important that notion that it was, it was a shared experience, even though, in some ways that whole notion that phrase that people kept repeating during the pandemic. Together apart together or together apart was really very much something that I found was real. It was very real during the during this residency. Thank you so much I still remember back to our first orientation day where I did orientation in person with the bell and Renee and bow. But for you, I did a FaceTime with my phone and walked you through all million square feet of me from FaceTime. And so I don't know how many of you in our audience tonight experienced the, you know, experienced really working with other people to be able to, again, operate productively. And how rewarding that is on both ends of it. It was so great. And so, thank you for, for, you know, for being willing to try this experience and try this experiment out it just was so fruitful and amazing. I appreciate it too. Thank you. Well, last question for me for you and then we'll go to the, we'll go to the Q&A in the chat. One of the things that that I'll never forget is that you talk to me and my guess is that, perhaps, Renee had a similar experience out in community as well and so Renee if you want to respond after that, that's fine. If you want to leave it with her answer, that's fine as well. Leave that up to you. But Mabel, you said to me that when people asked, people in the community asked why you were photographing them. And you said I'm photographing it for the city's archive. They responded not like, yay, they responded with, well, you better do this right. You better represent us well. And it was this serious thing. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean there's definitely different kinds of responses whether, you know, I was with a city worker versus a community health worker versus a patient, right. And definitely, you know, someone mentioned these vests. I still have mine. I'm going to have it. I'm going to keep it forever. But, you know, at one point I was photographing and someone saw, you know, the insignia of COVID command and they really wanted like, oh, you're from the city and I'm like, well, I'm from this neighborhood. I'm doing this with the city, but I'm from here, you know. And, but people like, okay, that's great, you know, come right in. We are welcome to be here, spend time here, but definitely give credit where credit is due, right. And there's a whole strata of people that were working in the city, whether as city employees or as volunteers, as community organizations, as just random people looking out for your neighbors and checking in like, we all kind of had to do our part at whatever level we were. And so it was really important to me to do right by my neighbors who were volunteering, a lot of them in the Latino food hub in the testing sites, vaccine sites. I mean, I would walk up to some of these sites, and I would see people who I know and familiar faces and that just immediately made it easier to have access, but it also gives you that pressure of like, these are my friends and they're going to keep me accountable. And these are my neighbors and I'm going to keep seeing them after this is over. I'm just not hiding an anonymity. So there's a special significance and a special responsibility to do right and represent and give credit at every level that's possible. Beautiful. Thank you, Renee. Did you want to respond to that at all? Well, just to say, I didn't have that experience. They just were like, whoa, I'm getting in the archives. Fantastic. So I know that Susan Goldstein is in the audience tonight, the city archivist and the process will be that we still are turning in our portfolios. All right, artists and getting ready to, to bring them over and it'll be a little while till the public has access to them. I'm really glad that you all came out tonight and got this sneak, this sneak preview. You know, they have to be brought into the collection and then digitized and cataloged and it'll be a little while. But maybe we'll make an announcement on the Arts Commission social media when they're ready to be accessed by the public and make a little to do about that. It would be great. Thank you and see what questions are there. The first one is from SG and it says, this was such a community effort and I'm assuming that you mean COVID response and prevention with the message of community taking care of community. Do you see that effort continuing? Taking care of each other. Anyone want to address that? I can, I can happy to jump in. I've noticed that the testing sites have changed right in the in the early days that was very crowded and everybody was getting tested and as the vaccine rolls out, the testing starts going down right and and I'm seeing kind of like not not not complete dismantling of those testing sites, but kind of integrating them to the vaccine sites. So as things are kind of starting to, you know, be rolled out, there's things that continue that I know that the testing and vaccination sites and the mission are going to be reducing their size or getting integrated to other services, but the food distribution continues. And I really want to say like, I feel like we're in San Francisco, we're doing so well with 80% of people being fully vaccinated. And so a lot of us are kind of moving to this frame of mind of the pandemic is over, but people in the mission and I'm sure in other communities in San Francisco are still experiencing the financial devastation of the pandemic, the financial impact. And Latinos, especially in the mission, lost a lot of wealth just lost a lot of savings paying paying rent. So while some things that are less need like testing and vaccinations are being reduced. Things like food are still going strong and the, the mission food hub and Alabama and 17th is feeding people no questions asked Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays, huge boxes of food, and the Excelsior is also giving away and I'm sure many other community hubs but in my neighborhood in my community. Those are still those guys are still planning on continuing as long as possible. And I am spoke I can just say that I'm, you know, the, some of the non COVID command people with whom I spoke who are working with organizations that have been brought into the city's response are going to continue to do the work that they do and I was interested in it was Robin Vargas, who I spoke with who works with a shanti project was saying that it is possible that shanti in the city will continue to work closely in some of the ways that they have been during this pandemic response, moving forward and so some of kind of broadening some of the work that they're doing and so it seems like this experience is transforming how it's exposing needs that may have existed before, but may have flown below the radar, which is I think really transformative. I'll throw to Renee to answer first, I think it's a great one for you, and then back over to mobile. Thank you, Juan and mobile for fielding the last question. This one is from Robin Takayama. And I want to acknowledge how many SW workers are in our audience tonight. So thank you, thank you for your service and thank you for being here tonight. She says the pandemic was so devastating with people going hungry and being out of work. How, what was your approach. What was your approach as photojournalists, maintain people's dignity, as you did in your photography. I'm really thinking about respect and dignity when you shoot and this is something both of you do beautifully all the time, but where there's special considerations during the this particular assignment. Renee I'll start with you. So, mostly it was spending time with people, you know, even those people who were giving the vaccinations, you know I talked with them for a good long time they would be times when they would have a low and the crowd on the, you know, group and so just knowing some of them came from Vallejo, some of them came from Los Angeles, you know, and I would just be talking with them about, you know, common casual things things that may or may not have had to do with COVID and so that was one thing and the other thing was also wherever I went there was really good music and so people were just into the music and you know whether it was gospel because when I was in the church, they had the choir that was they were performing by way of zoom so you could hear the gospel music, or you know, being in the Bayview area, you know they just had the music going and so that really just gave people not only some loosening up and ways to speak to people. But yeah, for the most part it really just felt like family and home and I think that is all that it took. Thank you Renee. This is our last question and it's from William Brent, and he says, Mabel did you struggle at times to share your neighborhood. It's a place that's so close to you. So how do you work in in your own community you're so close to it. And so maybe it's hybrid of that question and the one that that Renee just asked just answered about respect and dignity. Yeah. And speaking about covering my neighborhood I just want to make a quick clarification I should have made earlier, Meg as you were introducing some of the places where my work has appeared in some of some of the publications. I do want to mention the Colote newspaper which is a bilingual newspaper here in the mission. And that's where you'll see my work most often and that's really where I've kind of learned to become a journalist and started covering my community and to to answer the question specifically. There wasn't added responsibility because I know a lot of the people. But in a lot of ways it was easier to gain access because you know when you show up to a site with a camera in a situation where people are vulnerable they'll either either receiving food that they need or they're getting. Going through a medical procedure right a test or a vaccine. So those situations where people are really vulnerable. You have to be super respectful but when you come in and immediately there's someone that recognizes oh hey mobile how are you doing. What are you here to do. And it's like great I know at least one person at every site at almost any time. And that immediately sort of relaxes everybody else that's working around you and and like Renee was saying too about making people comfortable and and really just taking the time to talk. Unfortunately I do see a lot of very talented photographers out there photojournalists who go and they shoot shoot shoot but there's some separation there with the people that they're shooting and really like 50% of the work that you put in should be putting the camera down and just looking at people in the eyes and talking to them and taking a moment to chat like and this was particularly you know when I was shooting people who were at the food distribution sites. There's a lot of pride in Latino culture about asking for help and not wanting to rely on handouts and it's a lot of the stereotypes that are put on us so we don't want to feel like like that's us you know like we need help and so it's a really vulnerable position to be in and so what I would do is I would show up before the food was actually getting distributed and will people was still standing in line and just talk to them and you know I could speak Spanish so I could speak English or Spanish whatever the people in the neighborhood you know felt comfortable in and you know I I I see my my relatives in the people that were standing in line I recognize people. They could be my aunties it could be my grandma, you know what I mean and to keep that in mind really really at all times anytime you're covering people who are vulnerable you should have that perspective like this could be somebody that I love this is somebody that somebody loves this is someone's mom this is someone's aunt like let's not show our camera in someone's face that's that's going through the difficulty so really knowing when to put your camera aside is just as important as as knowing when to jump in so I really hope that as we really some of these images that it'll be apparent that we did I think the best that we could to to give people agency to allow them to give or not give consent when being photographed. That's that's very important so that's a little bit of what what goes into navigating those situations. Thank you so much my bell that's a great that's a great note to go out on. I didn't want to mention two things one is that we did have release forms and we had them in multiple languages. So that the subjects could sign off on having their photo taken and the other thing is that all the artists and residents were financially compensated. And it's important to know that this was a funded project and not we weren't asking for artists especially during a time when so many artists were struggling to volunteer their time to do this so paying artists is important. I want to say, on behalf of the city and county of San Francisco. Thank you for your service. Thank you so much Renee Juan mobile and bow who is not with us here tonight. Thank you for working so hard for being so generous for being so kind and for representing all of the individuals and communities that you work so closely with. Thank you so much. Thank you all thank you all amazing and beautiful work, and I appreciate all your thoughtfulness and your answers and thank you for sharing all that work and we will look forward to seeing it at the coven time capsule in our archive. And everyone have a wonderful night. I put the link to tonight's event and you can watch it again on YouTube. Have a wonderful night.