New poster series promotes vaccine effort
Creativity + Public Health from the SCAC
Plan your vaccine—that’s the latest message on a series of public health posters created over the last 12 months in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As part of the cross-sector initiative of the South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) called
The Art of Community: Rural SC, a community of artists, makers, organizations and local voices have helped support and advance what it means to be healthy and safe through quarantine, closing and opening schools, restaurants, offices and more.
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BONUS CONTENT: Lea esta historia en español a continuación.
Working with artist
Amiri Farris of Bluffton,
the SCAC team has used artful and timely messaging to remind people to social distance, wash hands, cover sneezes and coughs, make self-care a priority, uplift and thank essential workers, and love community.
“These posters use the full spectrum of ‘rainbow colors’ that get people’s attention,” Farris said.
Having empathy for one another is something Farris stresses. “I really want to hug people but we can’t do that, so these posters are a way to reach out to people; to thank workers who are all keeping us all safe and healthy; and to remind us to maintain healthy protocols during times of crisis.”
With the expansion of the vaccine eligibility to include a wider array of individuals, this latest poster is just in time.
“Special thanks to our internal team who has worked behind the scenes to get these posters created and out—Laura Marcus Green, Abigail Rawl and Jason Rapp,” said Community Arts Program Director
Susan DuPlessis. “And to our public health partners who value the role of arts and culture in our state—including the Department of Health and Environmental Control, the South Carolina Office of Rural Health, UofSC schools of public health and medicine.”
“And an extra thanks to Maribel Acosta of Art Pot in Berkeley County who helped us create Spanish-language versions of these posters so they have an impact with even more people in our state,” Green said.
“We know there is an intersection with the arts and everything in our lives, but it’s especially gratifying in times like these to see how arts and creativity can help our public health experts promote important messages so many people need to hear,” SCAC Executive Director
David Platts said. “Partnerships like these further the public value of arts and creativity to all South Carolinians.”
The Art of Community: Rural SC is a place-based initiative working in 14 rural communities and the Catawba Indian Nation. “Using arts and culture strategically to advance local places is the essence of our approach. These posters are a great example of what it means to lift local voices and amplify creative spirits for the good of everyone,” DuPlessis said. “We are truly in this moment together.”
- More about The Art of Community: Rural SC:
The latest statistics on COVID-19 in South Carolina
- 455,495 total cases
- 7,851 confirmed deaths
- as of March 16, 2021
Source: South Carolina Dept. of Health & Environmental Control
Creatividad + Salud Pública del SCAC
Planifique su vacuna- Este es el mensaje más reciente de una serie de carteles de salud pública creados durante los últimos 12 meses en respuesta a la pandemia de COVID-19.
Como parte de la iniciativa intersectorial de la Comisión de Artes de Carolina del Sur llamada
The Art of Community: Rural SC (El arte de la comunidad: Rural SC), una comunidad de artistas, creadores, organizaciones y voces locales han ayudado a apoyar y promover lo que significa estar sano y seguro a través de la cuarentena, con el cierre y apertura de escuelas, restaurantes, oficinas y más.
En colaboración con la artista Amiri Farris de Bluffton, Carolina del Sur,
el equipo de la Comisión de las Artes ha utilizado mensajes ingeniosos y oportunos para recordar a las personas la distancia social, lavarse las manos, cubrirse los estornudos y la tos, hacer del cuidado personal una prioridad, animar y agradecer a los trabajadores esenciales y el amor a la comunidad.
“Estos carteles utilizan el espectro completo de los colores del arco iris que llaman la atención de la gente,” dijo Farris. Tener empatía el uno por el otro es algo que Farris enfatiza. “Tengo muchas ganas de abrazar a la gente, pero no podemos hacer eso, así que estos carteles son una forma de llegar a las personas; agradecer a los trabajadores que nos mantienen a todos seguros y saludables; y recordarnos que debemos mantener protocolos saludables en tiempos de crisis.”
Con la expansión de la elegibilidad de la vacuna para incluir una gama más amplia de personas, este último cartel llega justo a tiempo.
“Un agradecimiento especial a nuestro equipo interno que ha trabajado entre bastidores para crear y publicar estos carteles: Laura Marcus Green, Abigail Rawl y Jason Rapp,” dijo la directora del programa de artes comunitarias,
Susan DuPlessis. “Y a nuestros socios de salud pública que valoran el papel de las artes y la cultura en nuestro estado, incluido el Departamento de Salud y Control Ambiental, la Oficina de Salud Rural de Carolina del Sur, la Escuela de Salud Pública de la Universidad de Carolina del Sur y la Escuela de Medicina de la Universidad de Carolina del Sur.”
“Y un agradecimiento adicional a Maribel Acosta de Art Pot, en el condado de Berkeley, que nos ayudó a crear una versión en español de estos carteles para que tengan un impacto a más personas en nuestro estado,” dijo Green.
"Sabemos que hay una intersección con las artes y todo en nuestras vidas, pero es especialmente gratificante en tiempos como estos ver cómo las artes y la creatividad pueden ayudar a nuestros expertos en salud pública a promover mensajes importantes que muchas personas necesitan escuchar", dijo el Director Ejecutivo de SCAC,
David Platts. "Asociaciones como estas mejoran aún más el valor público de las artes y la creatividad para todos los carolinos del sur."
El arte de la comunidad: Rural SC es una iniciativa de educación basada en la región, que trabaja en 14 comunidades rurales y la nación indígena Catawba. “Usar el arte y la cultura de manera estratégica para promover los lugares locales es la esencia de nuestro enfoque. Estos carteles son un gran ejemplo de lo que significa levantar las voces locales y amplificar las mentes creativas por el bien de todos,” dijo DuPlessis. "Realmente estamos juntos en este momento."
Estadísticas sobre COVID-19 en de Carolina del Sur
- 455,495 casos totales
- 7,851 muertes
- 16 de marzo de 2021
Fuente: South Carolina Dept. of Health & Environmental Control
Through the residency and its theme of “Land and Justice,” Farris will engage with the history and heritage of Penn Center, located on St. Helena Island, and with its surrounding community in the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.
Farris is a Bluffton-based interdisciplinary artist whose work has been featured in more than 50 solo exhibitions and juried museum shows nationally and internationally.
Farris was appointed to the residency by a committee including members of cultural and artistic organizations connected to Penn Center and led by Deloris Pringle, chair of Penn Center’s board of trustees.
“Amiri Geuka Farris’s experience as a preservationist, educator, musical performer, videographer, and cultural curator places his bold and brilliant art at the intersection of people, place, and time,” said Penn board member Tia Powell Harris, vice president for education and community engagement at New York City Center, who served on the selection committee.
“His art is often rooted in the legacy of the Gullah Geechee heritage and his desire to uplift the tenacity of the Gullah people,” Harris said. “We look forward with great anticipation to Amiri’s residency at the historic Penn Center and to the dynamic visual stories that will emerge from his interactions with our supportive staff and board, a welcoming community, and the indomitable spirit of the elders past and present, who have served as stewards of the land.”
The Culture and Community project is funded by a $1 million 2021 grant to the Willson Center by the Mellon Foundation. Barbara McCaskill, professor of English and associate academic director of the Willson Center, and Nicholas Allen, Baldwin Professor in Humanities and director of the Willson Center, are the grant’s principal investigators and serve on the project’s steering committee with Pringle, Valerie Babb, Andrew Mellon Professor of Humanities at Emory University, and interim Penn Center executive director Bernie Wright. Angela Dore, the project’s research coordinator, provides day-to-day oversight of the project’s programs.
The beginning of Farris’s residency launches the partnership’s second year of public programs, which will include two Penn Center Community Conversations and two cohorts of Student Summer Research Residencies: on-site classes and workshops with students and faculty from colleges and universities across the Southeast. The first of 2023’s public conversations, “Penn Center, Land, and Community,” will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 22 in Penn Center’s Frissell Community House. The research residencies, which will take place in May, will include workshops and conversations that Farris will lead with students and other participants.
Among the more than 400 artists from throughout the Southeast are 124 #SCartists who will vie for the big, $50,000 grand prize. The list features artists known well by the SCAC: fellowship recipients, emerging artists, and artist partners; and we recognize a couple South Arts fellows as well.
An email from ArtFields said the panel was "extremely impressed" by the applicants' quality of work. ArtFields 2023 takes place April 19-29 in Lake City.
Good morning! 
The SCAiA logo, by Amiri Geuka Farris.[/caption]
Together, the SCAC and South Carolina Artists in Action (SCAiA) envision a South Carolina where Black artists have essential support for sustainable careers. The mission of SCAiA is to identify and implement best practices enabling Black artist to artist and Black artist to institutions to advance, support and sustain equitable, inclusive working relationships.
“The needs of Black artists are different in that they often require a targeted level of support to get started. SCAiA wants to help navigate access and other systemic challenges. It will also provide a network of peers with similar backgrounds and experiences who either overcame those challenges or are working through them,” SCAC Director of Artist Services Ce Scott-Fitts said.
Scott-Fitts is chairperson of the SCAiA committee, serving with Triza Cox, Michael Murray, and Kathryn Van Aernum.
SCAiA released a survey this week to gather critical input from Black South Carolina artists (#SCartists). The observations, thoughts, and feedback will help SCAiA’s committee set program goals. The survey can be accessed from the program’s SCAC webpage: 
Amiri Farris[/caption]
Artist Amiri Farris designed the Woodland Drive underpass mural, and it will be painted under his direction by teams composed mostly of UofSC Lancaster students and other interested participants. The mural will reflect the environmental mission and beauty of the Greenway. Teams will paint throughout the week beginning on April 19 and ending with an unveiling and artist’s talk by Farris on Saturday, April 24 at noon. Anyone interested in viewing the work in progress is welcome to visit the Woodland Drive underpass during Greenway open hours from dawn to dusk and at the unveiling on Saturday April 24 at noon.
"Be the Art" is an interactive “Spring into the Arts” exhibition in which anyone can participate. At 11 a.m., beginning at the Founders Federal access at Barr Street School, participants will carry umbrellas on the short, 7/10 of a mile walk from Barr Street to the Woodland Drive underpass. Anyone who wishes to "Be the Art" will walk single file, wearing masks and socially distanced, along the greenway with umbrellas open while a drone films the moving line of umbrellas. Borrowing from the New Orleans umbrella tradition, this is an interactive and visually bold art piece that highlights inclusivity, movement, color, and the beautiful setting of the greenway. The drone video of this project will be used to highlight the Lancaster County Council of the Arts and the Lindsay Pettus Greenway in various media and on the LCCA’s YouTube channel. Umbrellas will be given away to the first 250 people who wish to participate.
“Youth Art Month,” normally displayed at the Historic Springs House Galleries, features art by Lancaster County School District K-12 students. This year the exhibit will be a one-day event on the greenway. The exhibit will open at 10 a.m. and remain on view until 2 p.m. and take place in various greenway locations between Founders Federal access at Barr Street and Constitution Park (at the intersection of Woodland Drive and Main Street).
Spring into the Arts events to celebrate the mural unveiling are as follows:
