Kelli, Jeremy, and Matt

Kelli: “We are trying to navigate this pandemic on multiple front. So much of our energy is spent on quarantining at home, trying to envision a high-school library without students. Jeremy just finished 3rd grade—I wasn’t prepared to teach 3rd grade.

We are also paying attention to what’s happening outside our home. As soon as we were asked to wear masks in public, I worried about which one of my students would end up arrested or assaulted for being a Black teenager wearing a mask… We began to learn about the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery. So how could we protest while keeping ourselves and others safe? I made a sign and went to the protest, standing at a corner.”

Matt: “The line that’s been running in my head lately is ‘Not racist is not enough.’ It’s easy not to hate people and to be appalled by police brutality. But that’s only the bare minimum. How do I acknowledge I might be participating in racist systems? How do I do something about that? We’ve got to be doing things.”

Lexington in the Time of COVID-19 is an artwork about people practicing social distancing at a time of a deadly virus. And also offering kindness.

Kurt Gohde and Kremena Todorova capture photographs at the periphery of American culture, where drag queens, discarded couches, and abandoned motel signs exist.