The arts group City Lore has issued the following call for the public to share “poems, stories, songs, and videos that convey the experiences , encouragements, meditations, and innovations” to help raise spirits and document the coronavirus crisis.
Touching Hearts, not Hands: A Call to Collect Creative Responses to Coronavirus through Poems, Songs, Stories, and Videos
Dear Citylorists,
As we are confronting the coronavirus crisis, the worst catastrophe in many of our lifetimes, City Lore is taking all the precautions we need to – shutting our gallery and offices, working from home, postponing or cancelling our programs. At the same time we are putting out a call to collect creative responses to the crisis in song, poetry, video and other forms.
New Yorkers are famous for coming together in community after September 11th, as well as during the blackouts. There were many creative responses to those sorrowful and challenging times including singing together and communal memorials on the street. Today we can’t get together and hold hands to sing — but we can be creative in other ways. Many of you may have seen the beautiful images of Italians singing out of their open windows to find some humanity and joy in the midst of their lock down. Everyday, here at City Lore, we receive poems, photos, videos and stories. When we share such expressions of the human spirit, even when we are in physical isolation we can be uplifted.
City Lore’s dedicated staff has the skills to document the myriad ways that people and communities express their identities, humanity and connection with each other. After September 11th , we documented the memorials that appeared on New York City’s streets that culminated in an exhibit at the New York Historical Society, Missing: Streetscape of a City in Mourning; more recently, we collected and documented signs from the Climate and Women’s marches nationwide. (An exhibit that features signs from the Women’s marches is just now being postponed!)
So to help us collectively and safely to find comfort, humor, and joy during this crisis, City Lore is putting out a call for poems, stories, songs, and videos that convey the experiences , encouragements, meditations, and innovations of this challenging time.
Please send your materials to Jake@citylore.org with the subject line “Touching Hearts, Not Hands”. We will find ways to put all these responses together in a meaningful way. We all respond in our own way, we all do what we can, and this is the way a folklore center can respond. The human spirit is irrepressible.
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