Separate/Together
Separate/Together invites community members to make art sharing their lived experiences of being in quarantine, on the sidewalk via an art therapy prompt. The idea of art as medicine dates back to antiquity, and the act of creating art has been linked to improvement in emotional well-being. Separate/Together hopes to help us cope with the stressors of COVID-19 and to give the community a way to connect in this bizarre time of social distancing. The most recent iteration of this project took place on Hauser Blvd. between Obama and Coliseum in Baldwin Hills in Los Angeles, California on May 30 and 31. **This project abides by all local and national safety protocols to keep participants safe during the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine.**
Separate/Together, separate, together, Nicole Rademacher, social practice, public practice, COVID-19, drive-by-art, drive-by-art LA, Village Green Los Angeles, Village Green, 2020
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Separate/Together

2020
Community-based participatory artwork
Sidewalk chalk, art therapy directives, individually prepared art packs, registration system, community participation

 

part of Drive-By-Art Los Angeles, organized by Warren Neidich, Renee Petropoulos, Michael Slenske, and Anuradha Vikram.
Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles
May 30–31, 2020

Two masked participants in face shields kneel on a sidewalk drawing with chalk while working from a prompt during Separate/Together.

Separate/Together was a community-based participatory artwork developed during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic and presented as part of Drive-By-Art Los Angeles. More than 100 people participated over two days, working separately, in family groups, or within the social units available to them at the time.

The project grew from a socially distanced sidewalk drawing I organized for my son’s sixth birthday several weeks earlier. For Separate/Together, participants registered for time slots and received individually prepared art packs containing sidewalk chalk and customized prompts adapted from art therapy directives. Participants could follow the prompt, depart from it, or ignore it. The directives functioned as structures for making; the project was participatory artwork, not psychotherapy.

A small masked group, including children and adults, draws with sidewalk chalk during a socially distanced birthday gathering in April 2020.
Individually prepared art packs containing colored sidewalk chalk and labeled prompt cards are arranged across a lawn for participants in Separate/Together.
A handwritten prompt card reads, “Draw a ‘Tree of Life.’ How tall does it stand? Where are the roots? Does it have leaves? Are there animals that live in it?”

Drawings accumulated across the same residential sidewalk while remaining individually legible. No participant authored or encountered the whole work. On the first day, five days after George Floyd was killed in police custody, one family responded to a Tree of Life directive with raised fists forming a trunk marked “RESIST,” blooming into a Black Lives Matter tree. What participants brought with them altered the field in which subsequent contributions were made.

A long stretch of sidewalk filled with colorful chalk drawings, including raised fists and a tree, extends past parked cars while participants continue drawing in the distance.
One family’s response to a Tree of Life directive was the first contribution to Separate/Together: raised fists forming a trunk marked “RESIST,” blooming into a Black Lives Matter tree.

Scheduling, distance, individualized materials, and successive participation were not simply safety measures around the work; they became part of its form.

Separate/Together was conducted under the COVID-19 safety protocols in place at the time.

Presented as part of Drive-By-Art Los Angeles, organized by Warren Neidich, Renee Petropoulos, Michael Slenske, and Anuradha Vikram.

Press

 

Jonathan Keats, “With The Arrival Of Drive-By Art, The Car Culture Of Los Angeles Is Getting A Cultural Boost In The Age Of Covid-19,” Forbes, May 29, 2020.
Keats singled out Separate/Together for using the conditions of the pandemic to create a new mode of interaction rather than merely representing isolation.

 

Shana Nys Dambrot, “Arts at Home & Outside: May 28-31,” LA Weekly, May 27, 2020.
Nys Dambrot shares that the project was inspired by the quarantined 6th birthday party I planned for my son.