In March 2020, when COVID-19 and city guidelines paused SAY Sí programming and closed our building, our artists remained connected and responded by doing what they do best, creating. The artifacts found on this site follow the varied experiences of San Antonio creative youth during periods of school closures, stay-at-home orders and the rise of racial justice movements. Whether intentionally exploring COVID-19 as a subject or using art as a catharsis, the works being created are capturing this time in history from the unique perspective of youth.

This sudden and comprehensive change in their daily realities gave students the opportunity to reflect on their home environments, their family dynamics, and all the elements that make their lives so compelling and unique. With supplies picked up curbside from SAY Sí and new virtual tools - each artist told their story. Sometimes dark, sometimes light-hearted and everything in between, the Quaranteens Time Capsule reflects student's raw reactions to living in the time of COVID-19.

This project was generously funded by the Adobe Creativity Grants program.

Pixel ArtHIVE New Media
Middle School

Subtitled Pandemic in America, this was a first attempt to make digital art with the WAMmers remotely. We used an online pixel art app called Piskel to make imaginary objects that one could find walking around during the pandemic.

Art-Y-Fact Sketchbooks Visual Arts Middle School

Art-Y-Fact Sketchbooks Visual Arts High School

The Art-Y-Fact sketchbook project was a series of weekly challenges designed in collaboration with student artists. It was an opportunity to explore and learn about different techniques and concepts and each student’s interpretation of the weekly challenge was a celebration of their various perspectives. The result reflected the studio's journey together and came to represent a moment in time when the Visual Arts Studio went back to the basics of sketchbook practice.

Podcasts: Isolation StoriesMedia Arts High School

A Podcast series exploring relevant issues youth are facing today. Framed within the ongoing global pandemic and the social unrest, media students in the high school program reflect and investigate various themes - from COVID-19 and living in isolation to racism and reimagining what our lives would look like post-pandemic.

Non-Verbal StorytellingALAS Youth Theatre
Company Middle School

With the help of choreographer and visiting artist Jacqueline Salame, WAM students created stories told through non-verbal communication. These scenes were edited into silent films and presented as part of the Quaranteens: The Show live performance.

This project was generously funded by the Adobe Creativity Grants program and MTR Charities, Inc.

Slice o' Life Comics HIVE New Media
Middle School

Slice o' Life Comics HIVE New Media
High School

This is a project in finding insightful humor in one's everyday thoughts and situations, akin to journaling. Comics produced touched on a variety of different media and themes, not just pandemic-centric.

Photography DiptychsMedia Arts Middle School

As a means of exploring both the Principles of Art & Design and photographic techniques, MAS students in the middle school program developed a series of diptychs exploring facets of life before and during COVID-19. The result is a profound mix of the mundanity and anxiety of being in lockdown but also the little joys found “between the lines” of these turbulent times.

Quaranteens:
The ShowALAS Youth Theatre
Company Middle & High School

Quaranteens: The Show is SAY SI's first online ALAS theatre performance in the time of COVID-19, combining pre-recorded video with live comedic and dramatic scenes and performances. While in quarantine over the summer, SAY Si students participated in writing and movement workshops from their homes, and this show is the product of that writing. It features a spoken word performance by nationally recognized performance poet, Ariana Brown. As a visiting artist, Ariana Brown led ALAS high-school students through a writing workshop focused on the theme of tenderness. Students will share spoken word reflections on how tenderness is taught, learned, protected, and sometimes shamed in the world at large.

Funding for this show supported the hiring of a technical assistant, Elias Flores III who is also an alumni of the SAY Si Media Arts program. Additionally, choreographer and certified instructor of ballet Jacqueline Salame participated as a visiting artist with the WAM middle school program to create non-verbal storytelling videos.

This project was generously funded by MTR Charities, Inc.

State of Mind Mixed-Media Visual Arts High School
State of Mind Mixed-MediaVisual Arts Middle School

Visual Arts artists in both high school and middle school studios reflected on all of the feelings and thoughts they were having during times of quarantine to create new mixed-media pieces of artwork. As an added challenge to push their creative process, students were asked to use mystery art materials distributed via curbside pickup. They used all of the materials in the mystery pack with the option of also using their own art supplies. The results are direct reflections of what was on students' minds at the time.

Open Medium HIVE New Media
High & Middle School

Given the opportunity to pick their media for the Open Medium component of the Quaranteens Time Capsule project, new media students went for music, machinima, a game meant to be played over Zoom, illustration and interactive fiction.