Mark your calendars for a day celebrating community artistic expression at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park on September 30. All Bay Area residents enter free. I’m so very happy to have my slice-of-life photograph, titled What it Says, wild art in the time of covid, included in the 2023 de Young Museum Open Call. The photograph taken downtown on Market Street celebrates 50 years of Hip-Hop music and heralds San Francisco as a birthplace of music and musicians who have long called the city by the bay their home. The exhibition runs from 30 September till 7 January, 2024. Hope to see you there.
Over 2500 people walked together in unison on State Street in support of #FamiiesBelongTogether on Saturday June 30th, 2018 in SantaBarbara, California. In case you need some inspiration or motivation to #Vote Lenscratch curated a gallery of images that will have you/your loved ones off your derriere to #VOTENOW The images are as diverse as our nation. Have a look http://lenscratch.com/2020/11/vote-2/
Imagine, if you can, unable to walk out of your home because your hard-earned wages will be stolen by people on the street; or you are of an age sought by actors of corruption within the police force or street-gangs, and sometimes you can’t tell the difference. So you walk for two-to-three months with only a dream to keep you going.
Meet Jorge Joyal. He is 29 years old, from Honduras, and a father to a six-year-old daughter. Mr. Joyal said that he walked for two-to-three months with the hope of coming to the United States. The above exercise in imagination is his life story. While his dream to come to the United States has taken a detour, Mr. Joyal has been offered support and assistance by the Mexican government. He has applied for permission to work in Mexico and hopes to have employment at one of the high-tech companies offering employment assistance to refugees and asylum seekers.
The entrance to El Barretal – the newly designated shelter for asylum-seekers, refugees at the US-Mexico southern border at Tijuana, Mexico.
On Tuesday December 4th, 2018, DIF accounted for a total of 2,331 persons residing in the shelter designated for families with children.
On Thursday December 6, 2018 acting New York Attorney General Underwood: “13 AG’s are filing an amicus brief today to challenge the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict applications by immigrants seeking asylum. This is a de-facto denial of asylum. It is illegal, it is inhumane, and it must end.”
Attorney General Underwood goes on to write: “More than 6000 Central American immigrants, including over 1000 kids, are stranded outside California’s ports of entry waiting to present their asylum claims. They are living outside in extreme weather, without access to basic services, so that they can have a chance at a better life.”
The faces of mothers.
(front) Julio Alberto unloads the DIF van with personal care items scheduled for the families with children.
Jesús Landeros, of Santa Barbara, California is a volunteer with SBRN or the SantaBarbara Response Network; Landeros is also employed with Montecito Union school . “This was a learning experience for me too,” he said referring to El Barretal and his health, safety, and security responsibilities for students, faculty, and the school building itself during the grip of the Thomas fire and the subsequent mudslides. In this photo Landeros distributes personal health-care items donated by Direct Relief.
The contents of care.
In support of the dream to have a better life, and in efforts to assuage the delay of dreams to a better life, a generous wave of individual community-minded people, in coordination with the Santa Barbara Response Network,DIF-Mexcio and Direct Relief of Santa Barbara, California delivered hygiene products – the basics of everyday life such as shampoo, body soap, antibiotic cream, first-aid, toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss.. Remember how you felt after not brushing or flossing 24-hours? Imagine for months.
In this newly sprouted village at our southern border at Tijuana, amid lives stranded, one can see signs of former life ritual in children and teens playing soccer, in adding color to hopes and dreams in large scale graphics, and in the power of listening in the peer-to-peer conversations.
Overview of El Barretal. (pictured center) are Mariana Caña and Maritza Escobedo.
Mariana Caña and Maritza Escobedo are doing such work – listening. They are listeners, rendering the power of the compassionate ear. Both Caña and Escobedo are students in Psychology at the UABC (The Autonomous University of Baja California ) Both Caña and Escobedo are student volunteers, conducting health questionnaires of the refugees in affiliation with the NYU School of Medicine, under the direction of Dr. Allen Keller. According to his bio: “Dr. Allen Keller is Associate Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine, Director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture (PSOT) and Director of the NYU School of Medicine Center for Health and Human Rights.
”Caña writes that she hopes “to start giving psychological attention to those who need it most at the shelter.”
Perched overlooking El Barretal, Caña and Escobedo, listen and conduct their health questionnaires as volunteers for NYU school of medicine.
“I Believe,” “Yo Creo,” is written on the hands of over 200 participants during the lunch hour demonstration of support for Dr. Christine Ford in the sexual misconduct allegations against the United States Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh; in Santa Barbara, California on Thursday September, 27th, 2018.
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Alamy or Stockimo photoagencies – Images copyright Ana Elisa Fuentes
Die Blaue Stelen or Blue Columns is a memorial and permanent reflection site commemorating the victims of the Nazi Regime. The columns are located in public spaces — in historic and significant locations — visible and interactive throughout Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. Pictured above and below, the nine columns are situated in Luitpold Park Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany.
Above, this column commemorates a Jewish citizen of Ingolstadt, Germany who was murdered at the Thereisenstadt camp in the former Czechoslovakia, in 1942.
(above and below) The Blaue Stelen commemorates a Catholic priest who perished at the Dachau Concentration camp outside of Münich, Germany. (above and below) The column is situated in the courtyard of the former Nazi Headquarters which is now the annex to the Franciscan Catholic Church in inner Ingolstadt.
This image commemorates a soldier held in a prison for the armed forces in Manching, Germany. Executed at Amwaldsee.
Die Blaue Stelen is a gedenkstätte or denkmal a permanent reflection site and memorial to the victims of Nationalsozialismus or the Nazi regime. The nine blue columns above were installed in 1988 in Luitpold park in Ingolstadt Germany. The permanent installation is the creation of German artist Dagmar Pachtner. A new blue column installation may be seen here.
Above, this image commemorates a “femdarbeiter,” or immigrant, foreign worker, who was executed in 1942 in Munich.
A yarn bomb drapes the Millennium Gate Sculpture situated before the Santa Barbara County Arts Administration building in Santa Barbara, California. The sculpture created by artist Rich Peterson is an oval, egg shape, symbolizing a portal to a new era or millennium.
The spider web-like drape was knitted locally by a group of unidentified women in visual protest of county administration.
Dr. Agathe Jean-Baptiste, grew up in the Central Plateau of Haiti where she returned to practice medicine after completing her medical training in Cuba. She is the daughter of Agronomist Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize and founder of the Peasant Movement of Haiti (M.P.P); the oldest and largest peasant cooperative in Haiti, with 60,000 plus members.
Above, Dr. Jean-Baptiste gives instruction on womb fetal positioning during a Midwifery training course for MPP collective members. 40 members from the collective participated in the free training.
(at right) Nurse, teacher-trainer Maestra Denise Desormeaux asks questions of Midwife student and MPP member Jean Jolles during the oral exam segment of the training. Jolles was one of 40 students, from throughout Haiti attending the week-long training.”I want to work and help within in my community and protect the women in my community,” Jolles said.
AnaElisa 