The latest exhibit at Gallery 456 celebrates two collaborations sparked by the pandemic.
Early into the crisis in 2020 volunteer sewers coming together as the Boston Area Mask Initiative (BAMI) leapt into action when commercial masks were impossible to find. Gathering materials on the fly they created and distributed thousands of free masks. Chelsea was one of many communities they assisted.
BAMI was just one of a number of sewers who donated thousands of hand-crafted masks that were distributed last year.
The team from BAMI, as their efforts came to a close, assembled their remaining fabric scraps to create a colorful quilt that is now on tour to the neighborhoods cared for through their mask making. The BAMI team summed up the intention of the quilt this way: “Sewn in memory of those lost, sewn in honor of those struggling to survive, sewn to commemorate the hours of unpaid labor of thousands (maybe millions) of women around the world who cut, stitched, threaded elastic, packed, delivered, and repeated this every day/week/month of 2020.”
Students of Endicott College studying graphic design partnered with a team of Chelsea public health educators to develop logos and a suite of graphics for their communications. They created branding and graphics for the Promotores de Salud team and for their efforts to encourage COVID testing and vaccination. The students developed a public health information and harm reduction campaign entitled “Sabias Que?” (Did you know) to counter misinformation. A selection of the graphics the team created are on display.
The exhibit is always visible from the sidewalk in front of the storefront Gallery 456 at 456 Broadway. The show runs until early August.
Gallery 456 is a project of the City of Chelsea’s Chelsea Prospers program.