Edition of 20, 24 pages, 13 X 11.25 inches

Person Woman Man Camera TV began as a meditation on the moment of the Covid quarantine without an end in sight, when human interaction stopped. Our daily intake of news, which had already been extremely online and not necessarily healthy, became solely online and outright dangerous. Mike Taylor began monitoring the American Covid qlockdown in a drawing journal as Leslie Robison was experimenting with using calligraphy to illustrate our 45th president’s ridiculous and false daily pitches to a captive media, a patently slow approach mirroring many people’s return to gardening and crafts while unable to go to their jobs.

However, quarantine against COVID 19 soon exploded into a movement against police violence against Black people as the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery were replayed to a national audience who, for once, couldn’t turn away from the news. Black Lives Matter went from a rallying cry to a movement. Quarantine ended for many when they flooded the streets in protests. But it was complicated. Caution against the virus kept a lot of people inside, establishing a second front of protest: amplifying Black voices on social media and moving money towards protest bail funds and relief, making life-affirming culture, supporting their communities. Nobody had a job, but everyone had a role.

The movement to defund corrupt police departments, to recognize and legislate the significance of Black and Brown life, and to reprioritize our massive federal budget for the good of people over profit, is happening, still, now, as we approach elections. Donald Trump has assumed his Nixonian role as a law and order autocrat, ordering federal troops into protest zones, empowered by Attorney General William Barr and his nearly 24% of appointed federal judges to act first, deal with constitutionality later.

It’s not hyperbole to say that the soul of our nation hangs in the balance, first with the state and national elections of 2020, then with how we decide to move on beyond elections because there is no more business as usual.