Suffer the Little Children: Almost Immune 4d
In July of 2020, I had reached a point where I needed to do something with the masks my husband brought home every day as an essential worker. I began embroidering the COVID-19 statistics that the Michigan government reported everyday on their website. Each mask is embroidered with:
The date(s) the data referenced
The number of confirmed cases reported
The number of confirmed deaths
The total cases up to that date.
The masks included in this installation represent the span of time from July 2020 to Nov. 2, 2021.
The child is the latest figure in my Suffer the little children... series, which started in 2016 with drawings in response to the wars in Syrian, Yemeni, Iraqi, Palestinian, and refugee children who are growing up in war-torn countries. With the COVID-19 pandemic, I returned to drawing portraits, but this time of children affected by the disease, especially those who are most vulnerable, such as children of color, children in poverty, and also returning to the children in refugee camps as well as those crossing our own borders. These drawings evolved into sculptural installations.
Suffer the Little Children: Almost Immune came directly from The President’s statement earlier on in the Pandemic that children were “Almost Immune” so there was no need to worry about sending them to school. The masks the child plays with are those embroidered from July to September 1, 2020.
The adult figure, Pandemic: Weight-Bearer (BUT MY RIGHTS!) developed as I continued to embroider masks; just embroidering them, though an act of meditation and contemplation for me, was not enough. I began thinking about the COVID conspiracy theories and the outrage of a very vocal minority against COVID mandates and how they contributed not only to the numbers being reported but also to the individuals filling the hospitals to overflowing. The Healthcare workers bear the weight of these statistics and they are not just numbers to them. They carry the weight of their experiences patients, those that survived, and those who did not and yet they continue with little rest for themselves.
I continue to embroider the masks everyday the numbers are reported (currently 3x per week in Michigan). As I perform this ritual, I am reminded that behind these numbers are individuals. I also think about how these are specifically “confirmed” cases, which means they do not include unconfirmed cases, which makes the numbers much higher. And as many in our communities go back to “normal” activities, like the pandemic is over, I will continue to embroider each mask...
