“The coronavirus enforced a pause that none of us were prepared to take. And the effects of this disruption in our routines, in the way we ‘live,’ have been at times devastating. A crisis is always difficult to navigate; an international crisis impacting us all is new territory with no roadmap to follow. Our residents have experienced illness, loss of income, loss of education for their children, and an uncertainty that the future will be brighter. The civil unrest in our country on top of the pandemic only added to the daily burdens of our residents. How do we cope? How do we carry on? How do we thrive in the midst of such uncertainty? The answers are to be found in a realm beyond language, I think. Through poetry, song, art we can all tap into the strength at our core. Our stories of perseverance serve others who are trying to find their way. Our creative expressions can calm others and teach them how to express at a time when many feel numb. There are many examples to be found in this time when ‘We Paused,’ and our families have much to share.
”
We PAUSED!
A Community Handmade Book Project by Studio PAUSE for the Gates of Ballston Apartments
How Isolation Inspired a Community Project:
As the COVID-19 pandemic surged and the world grappled with its consequences, I watched AHC Inc’s resident services team work tirelessly to provide essential services to their residents since March 2020. Studio PAUSE is in the Rinker Community Center, located in AHC Inc’s Gates of Ballston community. By September, uneasy in my “non-essential” status but still at the Studio every day, I watched how the Studio community found ways to connect with their creative selves—desperately trying to make sense of it all—and sharing their stories and art with me. I wondered if I could help by taking these possibilities, the inspiration, and the hope to others. What if we shared everything we did when we paused in 2020 with the residents of the apartment community? If they could not come to the studio, as the community center was closed to the public, could we take our stories to them? Could the space become a book? We have made community book projects before but never one this big, for this many people. Still, the pandemic was a unique and terrible thing. This might be when such a project would be most useful. I shared my idea with Susan Davidson, resident services director, AHC Inc. Here’s what she said:
THE PROJECT
An Invitation to Connect, Reflect, Share!
For the project We PAUSED! we got funding from Virginia Humanities, and we created a unique handmade book giving a free copy to each of its 460 households at the Gates of Ballston apartment community.
Read Pressing Pause: A Community Book Project During COVID-19, a Q&A with Virginia Humanities Grantee Studio Pause.
2021: New Ways of Working
Studio Pause 2021 intern, Ella Endo, is an artist. So we decided to ask her to create the map of the community which became the cover of the book We PAUSED! Read Ella’s reflections on Arlington, her internships, and the project here.
“We PAUSED! is the first grant Virginia Humanities has awarded where the residents of an affordable housing community are the primary audience. It’s the first hand-made book project we’ve supported, and the first tri-lingual publication in our history. It’s a bold exploration of the border between the arts and the humanities, and of the ways that isolation reshaped our lives during the Pandemic. We PAUSED! is an inspiration in the ways it has brought people together. It is a book of healing and hope.”
– David Bearinger, Senior Director, Grants & Global Virginia Programs, Virginia Humanities
Why Everybody’s Stories Matter
“When we find or create a space in our community where we feel safe and comfortable being ourselves, we can connect with others in beautiful ways. When we connect with different people through art and stories, exploring what makes us similar yet different we change, and our community changes as well! Then our cities can be places where we all can thrive.”
– Sushmita Mazumdar, project director, Studio Pause.
“The giving and receiving of stories is the core of community. We are stories. Our bodies, hearts, and minds are shaped by the telling and listening to the stories of our families, our communities and our collective global experiences. We transform ourselves in the telling of stories, and when we conjure our narratives as offerings to others. We are vulnerable. In return we are gifted empathy, laughter, questions, and even quiet knowing. Images, jokes, eulogies, poems carry our voices and nurture us and each other. The act of listening to and witnessing the lives of others opens us to profound lessons and commonalities.”
– Susan Sterner, project humanities scholar
The Space as a Book
With a cover made from a map of the Gates of Ballston community located in Arlington’s historic Buckingham neighborhood, We PAUSED! chronicles the experiences of the Studio PAUSE community as they lived through the many changes and challenges of 2020. Told in words and visuals, their stories are shared on the inside pages of the book, sewn into the map. They reflect struggles, celebrations, journeys of healing, and inspiring moments of resilience, while highlighting the rich diversity of this community. We PAUSEd! is 2020 documented by children and seniors, internationals and Americans, in English, Spanish, and Arabic.
Photo 1, left: Editor Kori Johnson (left) and translators Soheir Ghali and Ruben Villalta meet in person for the first time during the project, and see the first proof in person at the Studio with Sushmita.
Community Bookmaking:
Copies of the book were handmade by the Studio community and the public who wanted to join in, in safe ways. The project included interactive elements, a website, online content, and events as well.
Photo 2 and 3, left: AHC Resident Services Staff participated and helped make the books, in socially-distanced ways. Some liked to fold the map, others liked sewing the signatures in.
Interactive & Accessible:
The books—all 460 of them—were then distributed to each apartment in the Gates of Ballston community. Residents were invited to share their reflections, writing, art from the pages of the book with us. Books were delivered in December 2021 and as COVID variants kept causing lockdowns and people were worried, completing the copies was delayed. We delivered the last books in spring 2022.
Photo 4, left: From left, LouLou Marino of Studio PAUSE, with Ariana, resident services staff for Gates of Ballston, and Sushmita deliver books to each apartment, spring 2022.
Meet the Team!
Studio PAUSE celebrates the talents and expertise of everyday people. Our translators are native speakers, and engaging in this project was a way for them to connect with other PAUSErs and try something new. We PAUSED! is the first multi-lingual book of the Studio. We learned a lot about new ways to be as we worked on this project.
Photo 5, left: The Studio PAUSE team
A Collaboration:
AHC Inc., an Affordable Housing Corporation, has been providing essential services to their residents who include low-income families, immigrants, and people of color. As they navigated the tumultuous times of the COVID-19 pandemic, Studio Pause was available to provide additional services that are beyond AHC staff’s capacity, specifically those aimed around social-emotional wellness, healing, and self-care through storytelling and art. We believe that We PAUSEd!–A Community Handmade Book project could offer our residents a creative outlet to express themselves and connect with their community in this time of need.
Photos 6, 7, left: AHC Resident Services Staff Retreats were organized so resident services staff could participate and relax and help make the books, read the stories, see the art and respond as they enjoyed refreshments. Below, books were distributed during AHC’s Holiday Toy Drive. Children found their homes on the map, colored it in, and took home a copy.
Photo 8, left: Many participants of the Buckingham Youth Brigade, a program of the local non-profit organization BU-GATA, had their stories in the book. Once their program restarted the participants made their books, read the stories, and responded to them as well.
An Award!
We submitted our project to the University of Florida’s Center for Arts in Medicine and are thrilled to share that we were selected to win a $1000 stipend award. Here is what they said: “The We PAUSEd!-A Community Handmade Book Project described in the narrative demonstrates how to leverage WE-Making to address COVID-19 recovery and racial justice efforts in America. The Arts and Creative Placemaking (WE-Making) Repository will feature your inspiring project as a “Promising Practices Case Study” to facilitate field-wide learning and encourage the uptake of WE-Making in communities across the country.”
This project is made possible by Virginia Humanities. Virginia Humanities connects people and ideas to explore the human experience and inspire cultural engagement. Headquartered at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia Humanities works to serve Virginians in every corner of the Commonwealth. To learn more, visit VirginiaHumanities.org
For the public, we created
We PAUSED!
a 2nd Edition!!
SUPPORT THE PROJECT as we create a A LIMITED Second Edition of We PAUSED!
The first edition of the book We PAUSED! – A Handmade Book by Studio PAUSE for Gates of Ballston is done. We have already made and delivered 460 copies to the residents of Gates of Ballston community free of charge!
We are making the book into an art exhibit!
We have responses from residents!
So, we decided to add this material and put it into a new pocket in the book We PAUSED! With a band that wraps around the book we keep the book’s original design intact yet announce the second edition. This is the version available to people who want a copy to learn more about the project.
JOIN US! We hope you will join us in this exciting extension of the project. Your support will be rewarded with thank you gifts and copies of the book itself. This event is good till the 150 books we are giving away have been claimed. They will be hand-made and shipped out by the end of June 2022.
Copies of the second edition will also be available at the exhibit We PAUSED! Unbound, opening June 2022 in Arlington, VA.