COVID-19 High School Photography

Online: JUNE — SEPTEMBER, 2020

As with every vibrant arts entity in our country, Open Doors: Art in Action faced some hard decisions with the COVID-19 shutdown in March. Our gallery space, our public forums & lectures, our participation in the First Friday ArtWalks were all placed on indefinite hold. However, we refused to accept “Closed Doors: Art Inaction” as our new title – and a virtual gallery was created.

Students of a local high school & community college had just completed a project that was most apropos for these times. Their instructor, Joe Corbett, had shown his students the well-known, poignant photographs from the Great Depression. Thus inspired, with cell phones in hand, these young people documented the impact of COVID-19 within and beyond the Flagstaff community.

The images were compiled into a video uploaded to our newly created YouTube channel. Staying true to our purpose of putting “art in action,” viewers were encouraged to donate to northern Arizona non-profits serving individuals severely impacted by the pandemic. This included our local homeless shelter and the hard-hit Hopi & Navajo people on the nearby reservations.

From a school assignment that only a few people might have seen, there is now an exhibit shared with a wider audience. Our neighbors in crisis have been acknowledged and aided.

And with our first exhibit “under our belt,” the committee members are upgrading this virtual format and will include it in future exhibits when our doors are again “open.”