Amidst from April 12, 2021 to May 15, 2021 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Fiona Yang
On Tuesdays, Elizabeth Katt sits at her desk in the gallery and works on her piece, “An Accounting: Through December.” By hand, she meticulously documents each death due to coronavirus in the United States – one tally for each life lost, according to data from Worldometer and Columbia University. Viewers steer respectfully clear around her desk, occasionally pausing to watch. Katt initially curated a playlist of mourning and protest songs from different cultures, but found it too distracting and now works, for the most part, in silence (Maryland Today).
When Katt is not working, her desk sits empty and quiet. The piece’s significance is apparent whether or not the artist is present; heaps of adding machine tape in the windows attest to COVID-19’s toll even without Katt’s silent labor as accompaniment. As a docent, with my own work to get absorbed in, there is only one significant difference between Katt’s presence and absence: each Tuesday at half-hour intervals, I am startled out of my reverie by Katt announcing to the silent gallery, “December 23rd. Three thousand, four hundred and five lives.”
“December 24th. Two thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six lives.”
“December 25th. One thousand, four hundred and ten lives.”
As the pandemic wore on in the US, breezing by its one-year anniversary on March 11, it became apparent that people were growing tired of confinement. The New York Times termed the phenomenon “quarantine fatigue.” Online engagement with COVID-19 was highest in March, when people entered lockdown; since then, attention has declined and stayed low. Axios summarizes, “Online interest in the coronavirus has been associated mostly with how disruptive it’s been to people’s lives rather than how severe of a risk it posed.”
It’s human nature to tune out information that makes us uncomfortable, especially if it doesn’t directly affect us. But that inattention can have deadly consequences. As alarm over COVID-19 waned and “quarantine fatigue” set in, data shows people were staying home less and taking longer trips – as early as April of last year, just a month after quarantine started.1 Inevitably, when people ventured back outside in defiance of COVID-19 regulations, the New York Times reported corresponding spikes in new cases. Dramatic surges were observed in July 2020 and January 2021,2 coinciding with warm summer weather and holiday family gatherings respectively. Warnings from state governments and public health ordinances were disregarded. And throughout it all, quietly and without fanfare, the US death toll climbed. The US counts over 585,000 COVID-19 deaths. The New York Times reported 33,041 new cases yesterday alone.
In “An Accounting,” Katt says out loud the number of lives lost to COVID-19 per day. It is her way of coming to terms with the inconceivable losses the US has suffered – breaking down the number 585,000 into small, manageable chunks. It drives home the fact that these losses were incremental and cumulative, each day filled with preventable deaths.
By shattering the silence in the gallery, Katt metaphorically shatters the apathy and silence that settled over the topic of COVID-19 after March. No doubt the number 585,000 – if not more, since new cases are still being reported – will be held up after quarantine ends as a tragic and sizable number. But it is not the post-pandemic reaction that matters. It is the present actions of an uncaring public that will determine the spread and impact of COVID-19. And Katt’s periodic reminders reflect the importance of that fact.
- NYT reported in April 2020, “In Texas, 25 percent of people stayed home on April 24, compared with 29 percent on April 10, two weeks earlier. In Ohio, people took 3.2 trips, on average, on April 24, up from an average of 2.8 trips two weeks before. In Louisiana, people traveled an average of 31.1 miles, up from 24.7.”
- In July of 2020, NYT reported a spike of 66,784 average new cases. In January of 2021, NYT reported another spike of 254,002 average new cases.
Sources
- https://today.umd.edu/articles/seeing-covid-19s-mark-a7e6ecbf-a4a5-4762-aa10-06bab9ca22b6
- https://www.axios.com/covid-attention-social-media-661ecdc3-0669-459a-a491-ed7fb069ab29.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/us/coronavirus-social-distancing-lockdown.html
Elizabeth Katt’s work is included in Amidst at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park.
For more information on Amidst and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/stamp_gallery.