Image credit: Social network analysis (www.orgnet.com)-org. mapping depicting departments

It is through our relationships with others that we transform ourselves. We can know ourselves and have a strong sense of identity and personal history that remains solid even through confinement and social isolation. In the digital realm we can assert our opinions and further strengthen our known identities. We can continue to socialize and find information but we rarely take social risks or change our opinions. (The phenomenon of social media bubbles has been known to filter information so we are only exposed to things we already like and know). It is through unexpected, unstructured social interaction with others who are unlike ourselves that we are most likely to transform our identities by experiencing a perspective shift. This shift isn't rational nor is it irrational. It's a somatic affect in our being. It feels literally like growing another eye through which you see others, reality, and self differently.

In my art practice, I often work relationally with people who are unhoused. These people have not had the privilege of staying at home. They are relegated to public spaces - the spaces we have been told by officials to stay away from. Last week outside of the Elijah’s Promise soup kitchen, one person told me that he didn't want to get the vaccine even though it was available to him because of the reported flu-like symptoms caused by the shot. “I don't have a bed to get sick in.” Every moment is a calculated risk, but more than that, there is no opting out of danger.

Like teachers, grocery store workers, and other 'essential' workers, my current work has a relational and in-person component in spite of still being in a pandemic, but art is not exactly essential. You can't eat or drink it or pay your rent with it. It doesn't give you a life-saving medical procedure. It is the question I am asking in the current work itself: is social health essential or non-essential? When people fall through the cracks of society, they are often ostracized and left out of social networks, further reducing social capital and the ability to move through the world and survive. How many times have I found an affordable apartment or a job when I needed it through friends of friends? Having social inclusion helps us psychologically and it also has concrete economic outcomes. Many of us have been existing in social bubbles for over a year now. We must find ways to open our bubbles and build social bridges so we don't lose the possibility to transform ourselves and others.

- Jody Wood, March 2021