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COMMUNIARS · 4 · 2020. ISSN 2603-6681 · DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/Communiars.2020.i04.09

Reflections XIX· XX

Reflexiones desde la educación y las artes en la era COVID-19 |

Reflexões da Educação e das Artes na Era da COVID-19 | Reflections

from Education and the Arts in the COVID-19 Era

DIPTI DESAI | dd25@nyu.edu

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY | USA

Naisha B. Solomon| nbs350@nyu.edu

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY | USA

Amanda Charnley | ajc396@nyu.edu

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY | USA

Received · Recebido · Recibido: 23/05/2020 | Accepted · Aceito · Aceptado: 30/05/2020

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/Communiars.2020.i04.09

Artículo bajo licencia Creative Commons BY-NC-SA · Artigo sob licença Creative Commons BY-

NC-SA · Article under Creative Commons license BY-NC-SA

Cómo citar este artículo · Como citar este artigo · How to cite this article:

Desai, D., Solomon, N.B. & Charnley, A. (2020). Reflections XIX and XX: reflections from

education and the arts in the age of pandemic cirus COVID-19. Communiars. Revista de Imagen,

Artes y Educacion Crítica y Social, 4, 48-52.

Abstract:

Dipti Desai developed Reflection XIX. Desai is a Professor of Art and Art Education and she is a

reference in the field of art education in activist contexts. She is also Director of Art +Education

Programs, Department of Art and Art Professions, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and

Human Development, New York University. Reflection XX is developed by Naisha B. Solomon and

Amanda Charnley, graduate students in the Art, Education, and Community Practice program in the

Department of Art and Art Professions, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human

Development, New York University.

Keywords: COVID-19. Artes. USA. Symbol. Diversity. Mixtape

Resumen:

Dipti Desai firma la Reflexión XIX. Desai es profesora de arte y educación artística de referencia en el

ámbito educativo artístico en contextos activistas, directora del Programa Arte+Educación en el

departamento de Arte y Profesiones Artísticas, de la Steinhardt School de Cultura, Educación y

Humanidades, Universidad de Nueva York. La Reflexión XX está desarrollada por Naisha B. Solomon

y Amanda Charnley, estudiantes de posgrado del programa de Arte, Educación y Práctica

Comunitaria del Departamento de Arte y Profesiones Artísticas de la Escuela de Cultura, Educación y

Desarrollo Humano, Universidad de Nueva York.

Palabras claves: COVID-19. Artes. EEUU. Símbolo. Diversidad. Mixtape.

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Resumo:

Dipti Desai assina a Reflexão XIX. Desai é professora de arte e educação artística de referência no campo

da educação artística em contextos ativistas, diretora do Programa Arte+Educação no Departamento

de Artes e Profissões Artísticas da Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Humanities, New York

University. Reflexão XX é desenvolvido por Naisha B. Solomon e Amanda Charnley, estudantes de

pós-graduação do programa Arte, Educação e Prática Comunitária do Departamento de Artes e

Profissões Artísticas da Escola de Cultura, Educação e Desenvolvimento Humano da New York

University.

Palavras-chave: COVID-19. Artes. USA. Símbolo. Diversidade. Mixtape.

Reflection XIX (Reflectiong on COVID-19 Rainbows)

In late March, after the stay at home order was announced by Governor Cuomo, rainbows and

rainbow colors on apartment windows increasingly dotted our visual landscape in New York

City. Each day on my walks, I see new rainbows emerge on windows in my building complex

made by children and adults. The rainbow and the rainbow colors are a symbol of hope amid

the coronavirus pandemic. I recently learnt that it was first seen in Italy and now is a global

visual culture image that connects people across the globe. Seeing the hand drawn or paper

cut out rainbows provides a sense of community as we are all in this lockdown together.

Another image that I see often is the text based, Thank You and Smile that remind us to seek

pleasure during this time of anxiety and uncertainty, as well as never allowing us to forget the

tremendous work healthcare and other essential workers, such as those who delivery food,

run our public transportation systems, and work in grocery stores do each day for us, during

this pandemic.

Looking at these simple visual gesture does provide me with solace and relief tinged with joy

that our sense of community has not been totally eroded in the United States. Seeing these

rainbows of hope also connects to the issue of diversity as the rainbow is a symbol that

celebrates sexual diversity, becoming a symbol of the LGBTQ movement in the 1970s that

incorporated the colors of the rainbow on their flag. I am also reminded that Archbishop

Desmond Tutu in South Africa coined the term “rainbow nation” to describe the diversity

among its population when apartheid was dismantled, signalling a new beginning for the

country. In spite of these symbols of hope and solidarity, I am troubled by the divisions and

hatred against the “other” (non-white) that has increased under President Trump. The

racialization of the coronavirus by Trump calling it a “Chinese disease” is particularly felt by

the Asian American community and the number of racist attacks against Asian Americans has

increased tremendously since the coronavirus epidemic landed on our shores. The

coronavirus has also disproportionately affected and killed African-American, Indigeneous

people and Latinx people in comparison to the whites. My thoughts lead me to think about

how the hopeful symbol of the rainbow can be transformed to become a symbol of social action

that works to challenge racism and social class inequalities in our country and world, which

COVID-19 has made glaringly visible everyday in our newspapers and media. And, how do

we challenge the images of blatant racist signs held by white supremacy protesting the COVID

lockdown across our country.

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COMMUNIARS · 4 · 2020. ISSN 2603-6681 · DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/Communiars.2020.i04.09

COVID Rainbows, 2020. Photo credit Dipti Desai

Dipti Desai

New York University. USA

Reflection XIX (Sounds of Community Care)

The COVID-19 Community Care Mixtape is a compilation and pedagogical listening

experience that we created as a way of reflecting, coping, and imagining what creative activism

feels and sounds like in this moment of perpetual uncertainty caused by the COVID pandemic.

Complete with original album artwork and liner notes, our project explores music’s age-old

capacity for healing and resistance, and has been created for you, the listener, as an act of care

during this challenging time. As we witness the devastating and disproportionate effects tied

to race/ethnicity and social class across our communities in the United States, we are forced to

ask ourselves; how can we holistically tend to the current health crisis without examining its

deeper, colonial wounds? How can we decolonize practices of care and emphasize the need

for care as shared ethos of relating, contrary to the ways in which care and its labor have been

gendered, racialized, and made invisible by the colonial state? These are some of the central

questions that guided our thinking about this project. The title of this project pays tribute to

the original art of mixtaping pioneered by New York City hip-hop DJs, beginning in the 1970s.

A mixtape was traditionally a homemade compilation recorded onto a cassette tape. As the

format grew in popularity among musicians and music fans, mixtapes were often crafted not

only for promotional purposes, but also as gifts between friends and with a painstaking

attention to detail, in order to impart a personal message or to communicate a specific theme

or narrative. The art of mixtaping is the art of collecting and arranging, of deliberately

fragmenting to create new forms, or working with the fragments left of destruction and

translating sound from broken pieces. We draw inspiration not only from the mixtape model,

but also from the art of deejaying as a whole and the musical strategies DJs employ, including

archiving, remixing, sampling, organizing, and redistributing. We seek to examine the ways

in which these strategies and music itself can perform decolonial functions. If coloniality is a

hidden, exploitative, and often unquestioned logic permeating all aspects of our lives, we turn

to decoloniality as a means of uncovering this logic and its resulting violence, affirming

wholeness and humanity, and creating new worlds and ways of being.

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We understand decolonial function in music as a range of possibilities, including how a song

or composition creates a platform for devalued communities to be seen, heard and understood.

This may take the form of a subversion of a traditional/ westernized style in song, such as Nina

Simone’s Four Women sung to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner. Song lyrics that address

or represent the lived experiences of the oppressed also perform decolonial functions. For

instance, C- Murder’s depiction of gang affiliation in New Orleans in the 1990’s in his song

Down 4 my n’s , which represents the negative reality of gang warfare is however indicative

of the conditions colonialism and systemic racism create for communities of color. C-Murder’s

Down 4 my n’s was released in 1999 right after the end of the crack epidemic, and illustrated

life in the Calliope Projects in New Orleans. One can argue that the poverty and violence there

were the results of racist Federal housing policies. The lyrics of the song reflect the reality of

that oppression.

The songs, sounds, and absence of sound that comprise the audio portion of the project have

been collected and edited with the help of musicians, artists, educators, sound healers, and

friends in our immediate communities. Many of us turn to music for solace and support

throughout our lives, increasingly now in these COVID times. We have incorporated songs of

healing and justice that resonate with us in this moment. Some of these songs thus have great

personal significance, while others were chosen to fit the larger theme of the project. By

drawing on songs and sounds that represent the effects of colonialism, we are able to cast the

spotlight on music traditions and the musical forms that have endured violent colonial

legacies. We seek to center artists of color and queer artists, among other margnialized

identities in defiance of colonialism’s methods of privileging white, male heteronormativity.

We are incorporating a variety of genres, including spoken word, samba reggae, calypso, hip-

hop, spirituals, ambient and binaural sounds, etc. Certain songs have been chosen for

decolonial lyrical content on topics ranging from land reparations to anti-capitalism. We

encourage listeners to utilize this material in a variety of ways, including as a meditative

“sound bath” experience or the soundtrack for a “listening party,” and to explore the artists

on this compilation in greater detail.

Generations of mutual aid and cooperative work led by communities of color, including the

more recent healing justice movement have made our present-day community care efforts

possible, of which this project is a small gesture of solidarity and care. The project will live as

a digital sound sanctuary (a place where listeners can find relief and reinvigoration) on

Soundcloud, a streaming platform traditionally used by independent and emerging artists,

producers, DJs, etc. A limited number of physical copies of the mixtape will be made available,

upon request. We hope this project by two women from very different social, economic and

ethnic backgrounds (Naisha is Afro/ Indo Trinidadian, Amanda is mixed) fosters a sense of

solidarity, and creates the opportunity for all of us to learn to listen to each other as an act of

deep caring and social justice.

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COMMUNIARS · 4 · 2020. ISSN 2603-6681 · DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.12795/Communiars.2020.i04.09

The COVID Community Care Mixtape, 2020. Photo credits: Amanda Charnley and Naisha B. Solomon

Naisha B. Solomon & Amanda Charnley

New York University . USA