Spotlight

How Artists Are Helping The World Cope With the Pandemic

Visual Studies graduate student Ella Turenne shares how artists heal the soul.

I woke up on March 30th and decided enough was enough. After nearly three weeks in isolation, I needed some way to connect with people in the outside world in a way that didn’t involve just liking and commenting on people’s social media posts. I realized that April was National Poetry Month and thought of my long time friend Timothy Prolific Edwaujonte, a phenomenal poet in his own right, as a person I could collaborate with on my last-minute idea. Could we host a daily poetry cipher on Instagram in the month of April? I quickly sent him a text. He responded almost immediately - yes. We’ve been hosting a daily poetry reading on Instagram since April 1. We’ve read our own poems as well as poems from people such as Suheir Hammad, Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tupac Shakur and Saul Williams. We’ve been reflecting that not surprisingly, many of their poems resonate strongly with current times.

Poetry was one of the first art forms I immersed myself in. My very first poem was a shape poem, written for my father in the shape of a heart when I was in elementary school. When I was deep in my teenage angst, I wrote many poems about love and heartbreak. Some of those are still cringeworthy, but hey, I was young. Then when I became an organizer, my poems became sharply critical of racism, the prison system and social injustice. As I was discovering my roots and history as a woman of Haitian descent, I wrote about Haiti. I performed spoken word about the complexity of being Haitian and American. When the earthquake destroyed Port-Au-Prince in 2010, I turned to poetry to make sense of it all as well as raise money for a library that had been destroyed there. Here I am again, in the middle of a pandemic, taking mixed emotions and hoping the words can make some sense of them.

They say that in times of crisis, we need artists. I wholeheartedly believe this. I do want to pay homage to all the health care professionals and essential workers who are literally keeping us all afloat in this time of uncertainty. What they’re doing is nothing short of heroic. That being said, I think there is a critical space for artists. All over my feed, I’m seeing poets, visual artists, actors, musicians and other creatives hosting virtual gatherings and events. For instance, at its peak, DJ D-Nice’s Club Quarantine garnered over 100,000 views with the likes of Rhianna, Stevie Wonder and even Joe Biden joining the party. In subsequent days, he joined with Michele Obama (who also popped into the party) to push voter registration efforts. Lest we forget that there is an election looming over us. It became a party with a purpose. It felt like we were all connected right there in his living room. On my end, I joined up with my friends Matt McGorry (of Orange is the New Black and How to Get Away with Murder) and JLove Calderon (author of That White Girl), co-founders of Inspire Justice, to do a #CoronaAidDanceChallenge, highlighting groups that are raising money for mutual aid. Artists are creating work to make sense of this time, to call out the injustices of this time and, perhaps most importantly, to help people heal during this time.

Even if the purpose is simply bringing people together to be in community and to process what is going on, that is enough. Folks are craving a space where they can breathe, be inspired, vent or cry. Artists are making those spaces available in a world saturated by terrifying news. People are being prompted to return to simpler things. Enjoy music. Cook. Read more. Or to listen to readings. A friend’s 10-year-old daughter has been reading bedtime stories called Dreamland with Aaliyah from her own children’s book collection for the past couple of weeks. They’re adorable and soothing even if you’re not a child.

What I’ve come away with is that even in this time of extreme physical disconnect, the artists are finding ways to hold community. As humanities scholars, we can be reassured that our disciplines do matter and have a deep impact on people’s well being. As we wade through this pandemic, healing what physically and mentally ails us is going to be necessary to bring us back together when this is over. The artists will be there to also heal the soul.