Postcard Power! How An Art Museum Connected with Isolated Community Groups during Quarantine Using Postcards, Art Murals, and Community Partner Support
nat rosasco • Oct 28, 2020
Earlier this year as quarantine fell upon the US, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and its satellite contemporary art space, the Momentary, both located in Bentonville, Arkansas, wanted to determine how best to help their region’s vulnerable communities and bridge the inequity gap created by the effects of COVID-19.
After speaking with several community partners and assessing resources, we identified the need to foster connections with vulnerable, isolated groups, such as patients in hospitals and residents in senior care facilities.
The result was a Social Connecting Campaign, the components of which included a community-wide postcard campaign with art kits which delivered over 3,600 postcards with messages of hope, commissioned original artwork by nine local artists, and an art exhibition that traveled to 22 sites around Northwest Arkansas.
Postcards/Art Kits: The museum commissioned local artists to create original artworks for the postcards. Once designed, the museum invited the public to draw in and write messages of hope on the postcards. Once completed, the postcards were returned to Crystal Bridges, and the team included the personalized postcards in creativity kits that were distributed to patients and staff around the area in art kits.
Art Murals: The artists also created large-scale, colorful versions of their postcards which traveled to 9 hospitals and 13 senior citizen facilities around the Northwest Arkansas region for one-day displays at each location.
The campaign would not have been possible without the input and advocacy of community partners. Museums offer hope and inspiration especially in trying times, but without community partners, this impact will never extend beyond the physical boundaries of museum galleries.
Art Against Racism is a virtual arts exhibition which aims to lift up the tremendous array of creative works made in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. In doing so, project organizers hope that the exhibition will serve as an archive of the national artistic response to this historic moment.
La Raza Youth Leadership Institute hosted an art contest for youth ages 12-19 with the goal of motivating Latinx youth to get vaccinated. Three winners were chosen, and the first place winner's artwork was displayed on buses and in bus stop shelters near a number of schools. A phone number is included with the artwork for youth to call to receive more information about vaccines.
Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective's Perception Isn't Always Reality engages BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) teen and young adult artists to reevaluate messages they may have received about Covid-19 and vaccinations and to reevaluate the sources of the information. Through their own brand of urban storytelling that involves collaborative work in hip hop music and krump dance, spoken word, videography, photography, and podcasting, the artists will produce a challenging body of work for the public to experience on urban canvases such as the sides of city buses and on air waves.
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The product of a collaboration the Potters' Guild of Las Cruces and Mesilla artist Josh Switzer, The Healing Wings project was developed to gave people in Las Cruces who were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic a chance to honor those lost during to COVID-19. Las Cruces community members were invited to paint clay-sculpted wings to hang on a metal tree. The wings gave the community members an artistic outlet to share their griefs or honor loved ones. The project also included a sculpture comprised of metal boxes, where people could write their experiences of grief on a paper and then put it in the box. Once the boxes are full, organizers plan to burn the notes as a symbol of letting go.
The Madisonville Community Studio is an ongoing project co-created by Madisonville residents and Design Impact to explore key questions about the inclusiveness of neighborhood changes. The project is supported by the Kresge Foundation. To improve interracial relationships in Madisonville and increase Black residents’ power, influence, and representation in the neighborhood’s development decisions.
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