Community Artist Projects Underway With COVID Radio

Anchorage Concert Association created the Community Artist Project to partner with local artists to create short-term projects that provide connections between communities throughout Anchorage while social events, venues, and performances remain limited due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The first of these projects is COVID Radio. Designed by Meghan Holtan in partnership with Anchorage Concerts and the Anchorage Health Department, COVID Radio is a hyper-local radio station for the Visit Healthcare drive-through testing site at ChangePoint. During busy times at the testing center, people sometimes wait in their cars for up to two hours. This wait can be characterized by uncertainty, worry, and boredom.

Local music, stories, and health messaging content related to COVID will be broadcast via a low-powered transmitter in the parking lot to spark joy, share needed information, and build trust in public health systems. The broadcast will also provide an avenue for the State of Alaska and the Anchorage Health Department to share information about what people should do after being tested. In addition, it provides local musicians and artists a way to have an audience for their art at a time when local venues are closed.

This project begins today, January 13, and will continue for as long as the surge in cases results in long testing lines.

Other upcoming Community Artist Projects include; Quarantunes with O'Hara Shipe, The World as Family with Leslie Robertson, and Quarantine Sister Circle: Choreopoem and Compassion Series with M.C. MoHagani Magnetek. Artist biographies and project descriptions can be found on our Community Artist Project webpage.

To post a comment, you must register and login.