Weight of the World at Checkout

Group Members:
Yona Bergman, Kristina Dormeus, Daren Villa-Fernandez, Selena Zhong

Movement Zine:
Taking the concept of Atlas, a Titan from Greek mythology, in our second zine cover, rather than a concrete movement, we chose to specifically emphasize the restriction of movement directly and indirectly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We did this to show the weight of personal responsibility that people, specifically youths, have to carry on their shoulders amidst the pandemic as we wait for our old lifestyles to become safe again. The smallest weakening of their sense of responsibility and everything could fall apart. Everything changed when the virus became widespread and made many aspects of everyday life a hazard to the health of not only ourselves, but others as well. Through the creations of our zines, we aimed at observing and acknowledging these changes on not only our everyday activities but on our overall thought process as we and our surroundings adapted to the daily demands and restrictions of the new lifestyle. We expressed our findings and observations in those zines. Creating this zine cover, we became more aware of just how much of an impact young generations such as ourselves could have on preventing the spread of the pandemic and the more we thought of, the more we could add to the mass, a molecule of the coronavirus instead of the heavens, that the main figure has to hold up to prevent chaos.

Institution Zine:
Our second zine cover reflects the shift in interpersonal interactions human society has had to undergo as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This cover emphasizes the numerous restrictions placed on institutions that once did not have so many restrictions, and allowed people to freely interact with each other. The protective glass and 6 feet markers emphasize the metamorphosis of institutions (a grocery store in this case) from a place where people could freely congregate and interact with one another to a place where such interaction is strictly monitored and restricted to some degree. The COVID-19 pandemic has shaped our view on various institutions in such a way that we see them as more restrictive than they were before the pandemic. The newfound restrictive qualities of the institutions would be found in the health department guidelines they must enforce if they wish to survive the pandemic. Creating the zines for this topic has made us all reflect on our lives before the pandemic in a way that made us appreciate the simple daily interactions that we used to take for granted. Creating these zones has made us appreciate when we lived in a society where simply interacting with others in close proximity didn’t have potentially deadly consequences.