Carrie Mae Weems RESIST COVID/TAKE 6! Public Campaign Project Materials

As COVID-19 cases continued to rise across Texas, a cultural consortium of museums and organizations in Dallas-Fort Worth presented RESIST COVID/TAKE 6! a new artist-driven project aimed at spreading healthcare messaging and combating the spread of the virus among people of color. Artist Carrie Mae Weems created the project to raise awareness about COVID-19 among Black, Latinx, Asian/Pacific Islander and Native American communities—who had been disproportionately impacted by the deadly virus - by promoting preventative measures and dispelling harmful falsehoods, while also paying homage to front line and essential workers.

As COVID-19 cases rose in Texas, eight local museums and organizations joined together to bring RESIST COVID/TAKE 6! to Dallas-Fort Worth. The DFW campaign's first phase uses billboards, public service announcements, and public art projects in various North Texas neighborhoods to offer information aimed at curbing the spread of the virus. The second phase will include the distribution of reusable cloth face masks to DFW areas with high COVID-19 infection rates. In addition, a series of promotional items - reusable bags, buttons, posters, flyers, and hand fans - will be given away at community centers, COVID-19 testing sites, food banks, and churches. Materials will be produced in English and Spanish. Through these efforts, the campaign underscores the importance of social distancing, encourages public discussion, dispels the myths and dangers of false cures associated with the virus, and thanks our front line and essential workers.

This multi-city project was led in Dallas-Fort Worth by Dallas Contemporary and a consortium of local nationally recognized museums, including the African American Museum of Dallas, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Crow Museum of Asian Art of The University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, M odern Art Museum of Fort Worth, The Nasher Sculpture Center, and the newly-formed Gossypion Investments group of cultural consultants.

Carrie Mae Weems, widely regarded as "perhaps our best contemporary photographer" (Megan O'Grady, The New York Times, 2018), created the public awareness campaign RESIST COVID/TAKE 6! during her current artist residency at Syracuse University. The "TAKE 6" in the title refers to the recommended six feet of separation in social distancing. Weems marries her photographs and healthcare messaging in this public art campaign created to spread life-saving information to communities of color.

Weems began working on this new project this spring during her current artist-in-residence at Syracuse University, as the extent of the COVID-19 crisis became apparent. The idea came from a conversation between Weems and her close friend Pierre Loving, lamenting what they saw unfolding. RESIST COVID/TAKE 6! can be seen in Syracuse, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Savannah and New York City. The campaign will continue to roll out in additional cities across the country as the pandemic continues to impact BIPOC communities. Weems plans to work with organizations in major cities across the country with large African American, Latinx, and/or Native American communities to amplify the campaign's message nationally. Weems' project is supported by her longtime producing collaborators, THE OFFICE performing arts + film.

Weems hoped RESIST COVID/TAKE 6! would be impactful in both its immediate messaging and in prompting wider dialogue about the pandemic and the long-term health of those for whom it has taken the most severe toll. "I'm not a policy-maker. I'm not a politician. I'm a citizen concerned about what's going on in my community," she says. "This coronavirus isn't going away anytime soon, and neither are the underlying issues affecting people of color that it has made even more apparent."

Note excerpted from DMA press release:https://dma.org/press-release/artist-driven-covid-19-public-awareness-campaign-coming-metroplex-presented-artist