The Love in the Time of Coronavirus Project now on View at NEHMA and Online

The pandemic-inspired exhibition, The Day After Tomorrow: Art in Response to Turmoil and Hope, is currently on view at Utah State University’s Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA). Included is a Community Response Space that features an interactive display and rotating exhibitions of work by local artists—most recently, photographer and USU professor of Hispanic Studies J.P. Spicer-Escalante’s The Love in the Time of Coronavirus Project that documents how people have relied on meaningful relationships in their lives during these times of social distancing and spikes in COVID-19 cases in Utah.

The exhibition opened on September 2 and will be on view through November 8. View it in person or explore it online at artmuseum.usu.edu/exhibitions/love-in-the-time.  

The project includes 39 portrait photographs of a diverse group of Cache Valley residents paired with text from the participants describing their experiences during the current health crisis. The text appears in both English and Spanish.

The participants wear masks, gloves and clothing that they feel represents their COVID-19 experience while posing with loved ones and pets outside or in their homes, showing how their lives continue to progress in spite of the coronavirus.

“My desire is not only that the participants and viewers feel emboldened by following the CDC’s protocols,” said Spicer-Escalante, “but that they also see the importance of personal relationships when faced with an epidemic like COVID-19. This project’s images are ultimately meant to give us hope that ‘we’ll get through this together’ and achieve a better future for all, in spite of the threat to our community that the virus poses.”

“We were so pleased to learn about J.P.’s project,” said NEHMA Executive Director and Chief Curator Katie Lee-Koven, “and to be able to share it with the community given his photographs speak to so many timely topics. Capturing both the diversity of people in the Cache Valley community and the diversity of their emotions about the pandemic and wearing masks, it really speaks to the collective and yet individual experiences we’re facing now.” 

Also on view at NEHMA are the exhibitions, Women, Surrealism, and Abstraction and African American Art, Social Justice, and Identity: Works by Black Artists from the NEHMA Collection.

Please note that the museum has taken precautions to ensure a safe experience for all visitors and staff, including face masks, regular cleaning, encouraging social distance and limiting the total number of visitors to 60 people at a time. Visitors have the option to make a reservation for one-hour time slots in advance. To make a reservation, please visit artmuseum.usu.edu/about/visit.

Visiting the museum is free of charge. Our hours are Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Free visitor parking is located in the lot behind the Russell/Wanlass Performance Hall on USU’s Logan campus. For public transportation, ride the Cache Valley Transit routes 1, 4 or the green or blue Loop and get off at the Fine Arts stop.