A National Endowment for the Humanities Program Helps UMD Gather Stories of Survival
Ivy Vainio, a Duluth area photographer, said that once the pandemic hit, she wasn’t taking photos like she used to. “I have felt lost,” she said. “I see other photographers out and doing things like photographing protests… which I would love to be doing. But I ban myself, even though I support them. I don’t want to be in harm's way with Covid.”
A project called, "Stories of Wisdom from Bodies in Separation: Archiving the Coronavirus Pandemic Through the Lens of Humanities," documented the concerns of Vainio and others. Her experience of feeling lost isn't unique.
Vainio is a 1992 B.A. graduate from UMD and a 2011 M.A. grad from the University of Wisconsin-Superior. She is now the climate and cultural resiliency program coordinator at the American Indian Community Housing Organization.
Over 100 people, including Vainio, participated in a $175,745 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) project directed by UMD’s Devaleena Das, principal investigator and David Beard, co-principal investigator.
A Year of Interviews
Beard and Das created an online format to share the Covid Stories interviews. More than a dozen area residents were chosen to assist with the project organization, take photos, and conduct the interviews. People from towns the size of Finland, Minnesota to towns as large as Duluth were approached. People of all ages, professions, and backgrounds participated. Some have lived in Duluth their whole life while others have been in the United States for less than five years.
Project support came from across campus from UMD’s Kathryn A. Martin Library, Tweed Museum of Art, and the College of Liberal Arts. Professional consultants from UMD's writing center, the Writers' Workshop, met online with individual writers on the team to review early drafts of their pieces. Matthew Rosendahl, the library director, pointed out the value of archiving this moment in time. “Libraries collect stories to help us understand our lives and our world.”
Art and “Creating Apart”
Part of the “Stories of Wisdom from Bodies in Separation” project included a Tweed Museum of Art exhibit called “Creating Apart: Local Artists Respond to a Global Pandemic.” The exhibition showcased the work area artists created during 2020. It was curated by Anne Dugan, and a description of the work called attention to the recent proliferation of art.
The narrative states, when “almost all activities outside the home halted, community members turned towards the arts.” Six area artists contributed to the show in the Tweed: Brian Barber, Sarah Brokke, Joe Klander, Karen Savage-Blue, Ivy Vainio, and Moira Villiard.
The name of the show, “Creating Apart,” highlights how artists dealt with the pandemic alone, and on an intensely personal level. As its description states, it promotes “public health and social justice through public service campaigns, public art, and activism.”
Documentation for the Future
Beard was pleased with the project’s reach. “It’s a wildly diverse group of people,” he says. “I am still amazed at the breadth of human beings and the diversity of narrative perspectives this project [has] brought together.”
The project was conceived and carried out within just a few months in 2020, and Rosendahl applauds the effort. It's a “rich document of our history.”
Learn more about the project at https://covidstories.d.umn.edu/