A space to call home

For those who don’t have access to see this project online, I created a zine as a visual map of the locations where our team collected pandemic stories in San Bernardino County. Historically, this area has inspired many photographers to capture what has been called the other side of two Californias; harsh inland terrain in stark contrast to a prosperous coast. If we are to meditate and learn from COVID-19, a place to start might be to take climate action to prevent another pandemic. Scientists have suggested that preventing climate change can help stem biodiversity loss as well as slow animal migrations that can increase risk of infectious disease spread. This begins with looking to the land. As Latoya Ruby Frazier says, “the history of a place is written on the body of its inhabitants and their environment.”

I asked photographer James Dailey, who was raised in the High Desert, to respond to my photographs. This is what we saw.