Cohosted with the San Francisco Arts Commision, Care in the Time of COVID-19 at San Francisco City Hall runs through April 15, 2022
CatchLight and the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) collaborated to present , Care in the Time of Covid-19, a two-part exhibition featuring photography and illustration documenting disaster service workers, COVID-19 response and prevention efforts, and life in some of San Francisco’s neighborhoods over the past two years.
The visual storytellers’ poignant work around communities celebrates individual and collective resilience. The exhibition is on display, free and open to the public, in the lower level and North Light Court of historic SF City Hall.
The exhibition features the photographs of two CatchLight Fellows, Yesica Prado and Felix Uribe—both of who were part of 2019’s pilot program for CatchLight Local in the Bay Area. “Images are such an important part of how we understand ourselves and our communities. We felt it was vitally important to support Yesica and Felix’s work documenting what life has been like—both the hardships and the bright spots—in their communities of vehicular residents and the Tenderloin over the last two years. We could not be more thrilled to have this work reach the broader public and policy makers alike in a democratic space like City Hall,.”notes Elodie Mailliet Storm, CatchLight’s CEO.
Prado—who immigrated with her family to the US from Nezahualcoyotl, Mexico, when she was 9 years old. She earned a master’s degree in Journalism from UC Berkeley and a BFA in photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago—is a photographer and filmmaker who has been an important part of the vehicular community for the last four years. While she was a graduate student at UC Berkeley, Prado lost her housing. She obtained an RV and joined a community of vehicular residents. As a CatchLight Local fellow, she worked with the San Francisco Public Press to report on the impact of parking policies on vehicular living. Through the pandemic, she brought critical information and access to resources to vehicular residents in San Francisco and beyond. Reflecting on the project, Prado notes, “While creating this work, my neighbors taught me an important life lesson: Home is not necessarily a place with four walls — it’s where your heart is. It’s where your family is.”
Prado’s work has been included in the 2020 YBCA exhibition, Come to Your Census: Who Counts in America?, at the SF Urban Film Fest in 2021, where she was also invited to participate in a conversation with San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Her short film, Quarantine Diary, received international visibility when it was picked up by the BBC and the 2021 United Nations Association Film Festival –– Moving Forward. Prado continues to live in her RV in Berkeley where her community is currently facing eviction due to policy changes.
Uribe has been a resident of the Tenderloin since 2015. As a CatchLight Local fellow working in partnership with Bay City News, he looked at the effects and what it has taken to stay in the Bay Area in the middle of a housing crisis. Like Yesica, he continued his work through the pandemic, documenting the impact of COVID-19 on the Tenderloin. He comments, “Over the years I’ve met so many incredible people living in the Tenderloin. I hope my work shares the love I have received from them.”
His work focuses on depicting the resourcefulness, strength and beauty of his Tenderloin neighbors, highlighted by his in-depth project, What it Takes to Stay. He partners with City Hope to create “family photo walls” that welcome area residents for meals, showers and karaoke, as well as photo essays on the grassroots activists that are making streets safer for kids going to school, and improving access to fresh healthy food. His Equity Ripples project with PolicyLink brings visuals, stories and context to statistics in the Bay Area Equity Atlas. His work has been widely published in The Bay City News, Local News Matters, The New York Times, among others.
The work of three other storytellers from San Francisco’s COVID Command Center Artists in Residence is on display. They are: Mabel Jiménez, S. Renée Jones and Ajuan Mance.
Look for more content from Care in the Time of COVID-19 on our Instagram in the coming weeks.