Narratives of Black life during the Covid-19 pandemic have disproportionately focused on high death rates, increased comorbidities, vaccine hesitancy, limited vaccine availability, and how racism has exacerbated Black suffering throughout the pandemic. But what of those stories of care, community, and how Black people have kept each other well during the pandemic? What do those stories sound like? “Black Covid Care” is an attempt to listen to this care, to the ways in which Black people have supported each other during the pandemic. From vaccine and testing pop up sites in Oakland, CA to community organizations feeding their communities in Greensboro, NC, Black people have come together consistently to keep themselves well during a tumultuous time in the world.
What we want to show here is that while these acts of care are indeed extraordinary, they are not new. Black people have been caring for each other in spectacular ways for centuries, from the Black Panthers Free Breakfast Program to invisible churches where enslaved Black folks could worship in peace away from prying eyes and ears. This project is a celebration of what Black people do for each other: how we feed, support, and love one another.
The site is set in space because how else could we even begin to capture the vastness of Black care, in all of its infinitudes
HOW DOES THE SITE WORK
As we collected stories of care for this project we grouped them loosely into different categories, which became the following six tags: Art, Education, Foodways, Health, Protest, Religion. These tags helped us to build constellations, which draw on the tagging system. Here’s how it works:
- Each star in the galaxy corresponds to a story of care and a sound from Boomscat.
- Each tag has its own sonic universe.
- Constellations are then built from two or three stars in the galaxy, which stack the sound or sounds from each individual star and trigger a story that is drawn from those tags. For example: creating a constellation from a star about an art exhibit that was put on during covid and a star about a food program that feeds the homeless might trigger a constellation story about a cookbook that centers art about Black food.