June: Unequal Application

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Artist: Katherine Gibson

Title: June: Unequal Application

Attribution: June: Unequal Application, 2020, Kate Gibson

Year: 2020

Materials: Fabric, Thread

Dimensions: 48" x 72" x 1"

Image Statement: Quarantined Americans began to grow weary of stay at home orders. With no unified messaging coming from the White House, state and community authorities were left alone to enforce and defend their public health mandates. Communities of color were disproportionately affected by the virus, leaving many white and rural communities wondering if we were all over reacting. A rebellion began bubbling up as people stormed statehouses, refusing to wear masks and demanding haircuts. Banal conveniences were conflated with civil rights as effigies of local leaders were hung from trees. Quarantined Americans witnessed police officers murder yet another black American man as video of George Floyd dying circulated on the internet. Protests erupted across the country, spreading beyond our borders and becoming a global call to confront racial inequality. Using data from Ohio we have overlayed how the virus affected different populations over the arrests for breaking stay at home orders in four Ohio metro areas by race. In both sets of data it is clear that communities and people of color are disproportionately affected by both the virus and policing. The bright colors, lack of a key, and transparency of material ask us to consider how our interactions with graphs obscures the human cost the data represents.