Art by Giovanni Zamora
Create Hope Art Campaign
In March of 2020, we embarked on a new arts-based initiative in response to the #COVID-19 pandemic and its unprecedented circumstances. The Create Hope campaign emerged as a volunteer, grassroots led art-based health promotion campaign to inspire dialogue on why ‘hope’ is so important during these uncertain times.
The Create Hope art campaign was launched on April 6, 2020 as a partnership between the Bridge for Health Co-operative members based in Metro Vancouver, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territories of Coast Salish Peoples and the Dundas West Open Air Public Art Museum in Toronto. By working in partnership, the campaign’s goal was to find a way to promote community participation through the arts as a way of building community resilience and positive health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a six-week period, from April to May, we collected over 30 art pieces via social media with #CreateHopeMural. The submissions will all be projected onto a collective digital collage that forms a mural to showcase the carious expressions of HOPE. Once the pandemic isolation restrictions are lifted, artists can paint the mural on the streets of Toronto.
With the participatory nature of the project, what resulted was a unique perspective and learning opportunity for the Create Hope organizers. We recognized that future health promotion campaigns and interventions should capture the adaptive nature and the current social context that people are in. In the midst of the pandemic, Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests took place across the world, making it a pivotal moment in history. At the time, the current socio-political context sparked conversations of the fundamental causes of health inequities and reinforced the notion that health is political.
One of the key insights for the campaign organizers was to establish interventions that can be adaptable in nature to the current socio-political context. Additionally, interventions aimed at fostering resiliency and community engagement should be collaborative while building meaningful and mutual relationships. As for the campaign, it offered a chance for campaign organizers to reflect on their own social locations and healing journeys by staying connected and using art as their own coping and resilience strategies.
The campaign organizers included a dedicated group of volunteers comprised of health promoters, public health professionals, community organizers, local artists, social entrepreneurs, and university students.
Create Hope Campaign in the media:
https://soundcloud.com/user-244969524-696484203/create-hope-campaign
https://www.rcinet.ca/es/2020/04/16/esperanzaarte-codiv19-mural-virtual-colectivo-createhopemural/
Please see video below prepared by our Social Media Team.
For more information please contact us at info@bridgeforhealth.org