San Francisco, CA
2020
In collaboration with Paint the Void
The Indigenous population, like other communities of color, suffered higher infection rates and poorer health outcomes due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This mural is a call for action to bring to light the disparities in care and resources provided to the Navajo and Hopi communities during the pandemic. It is also a prayer to ask our ancestors for assistance in non-colonial medicinal ways.
Depicting the vast New Mexico sky and the plains where buffalo once abundantly roamed, it is an ode to the Navajo and Hopi Nation and a call to protect these vulnerable populations.
“Protect the Sacred” references Indigenous people’s connection to their ancestral lands. The symbol in the center of the mural depicts the Navajo Nation seal with fifty projectile points or arrowheads symbolizing the Navajo Nation's protection within the fifty states. The opening at the top of the three concentric lines is considered the East. The lines represent the rainbow and sovereignty of the Navajo Nation. Inside the seal and radiating out from the Buffalo in the center are symbols to represent the Medicine wheel that is used by Native American tribes for health and healing. It represents the four directions and elements to teach us that we need to balance the four aspects of ourselves; the physical, the mental, the spiritual and the emotional.
The mural was originally located on the front facade of Buffalo Exchange on 23rd and Valencia st. Both Marina and Elaine having strong roots in the Mission District, wanted to address the connection between both places so they included a Lowrider that one might see cruising around the neighborhood. At the time, the Mission District had the highest rate of Covid cases in San Francisco.
“Citywide, 25 percent of positive cases are among Latinos, although they made up only 15 percent of the San Francisco population. This likely reflects risk factors such as living in crowded conditions, and whether residents have sufficient support to stay home and reduce their outings.” -Office of the Mayor, April 20th, 2020
The license plate of the Lowrider reads MMIW as a nod to the Missing Murdered Indigenous Women movement, which is a human rights crisis that has also been simultaneously plaguing reservations across the country without acknowledgement from the government or media. It is important to note that the Lowrider is abandoned. It begs to question, Who’s car is that? and Are they coming back?