The Echo Gypsy - Space Apps Challenge

The Echo Gypsy| The Art of It All

The Art of It All

What have you learned about yourself or the world as a result of living through the COVID-19 pandemic? Your challenge is to express your experience of living through this historic time through a work of art.

The Art of Isolation

Summary

This project will face the deep emotions of living through the Crisis. It will peel back the layers of extended isolation and examine how artistic creators cope with stress. It will consider other social components and energies contemporary with this crisis and document the validity of connection and existence here with this pandemic. Our website will be a social zeitgeist of art and expression where you can invite your creative circles to participate freely.

How We Addressed This Challenge

We utilized the free web domain provided from Nuestar to create a skeleton platform for artists to share their art in most any medium. The skeleton platform set the theme for the webpage. We further reached out to the artists in our circles to contribute to the page. We also created our own submissions. We believe this will be a very valid social snapshot of the pandemic that can be seen through the emotional honesty of art. In allowing outside submissions, we broaden the perspective to the voices within the community. We can therefore include a variety of ages, mediums, and insights to the pandemic. We intend to maintain the project throughout the year to document the social changes that are inevitably going to occur during this historical event.

How We Developed This Project

This project is similar to a project I created on Facebook several years ago. I have since thought of establishing a domain and continuing with this portion of my studio since it made a significant impact on the contributing artists. I did not want the page to be limited.

Since the crisis, the thought of revisiting this project has seemed even more valid. I have always believed in the voice of the artist and the artist's ability to capture an honest view on historical events. During this time of isolation, expression has become even more vital....also connection. Art is another way to communicate the often deep frustrations and complicated emotions we have all experienced.

Moreover, there have been many life events that have been eclipsed by the crisis. Many have accomplished long sought after goals. My family celebrated Easter in our front yard. At the time, social restrictions prevented us from even inviting a few guests. We had a Mother's Day reunion on Zoom. These things inspired the portion of the page that will be entitled "Eclipsed." It will be a place to document those very human moments the crisis subverted and the emotion that it inspired. These will be varied and interesting moments "written on the subway walls and tenement halls" (Simon and Garfunkel).

Project Demo

https://theechogypsy.us/index.html

All of our energy for this project was focused on the creation of the website. The rest was on collaboration with our circles and technical challenges with the transfer of files. Our page is published and has enough content to act as a demonstration of our project.