February 05, 2021 Peng Wu, Aries Yuanzhou Qian, and Chun Yu Meet the artists featured in the exhibition America, I Sing You Back. We are from the Pretty Poor Artist Volunteers team, which was formed to raise funding for purchasing medical supplies (facemasks, gloves, etc.) and shipping them to the overloaded hospitals of Wuhan city in China—the first locked-down city in the world because of the COVID-19 outbreak on January 23, 2020. The generous donations from Minnesota helped us deliver medical consumables to protect nurses and doctors from infection. After the lockdown of Wuhan city ended, we were saddened every day upon hearing about the spread of COVID-19 in Minnesota. With some funds leftover from the earlier donations, we were thinking of who else we could use that to support the people of Minnesota who lent their hands to us when we were deeply in crisis. With permission from the donors (who responded to our inquiry email), the remaining funds initiated the art project titled Since COVID-19. Our three team members work on this project voluntarily while all of the funding goes towards covering the cost of raw materials. This art project collects visual stories from people all over the world whose lives have been profoundly changed by the pandemic. We have been publishing the stories through our website (www.sincecovid-19.com). This project archives our individual and personal experiences with this unprecedented global challenge whether it’s heartbreaking or hopeful, funny or sad. Through sharing and creativity, we better understand that regardless of our nationality, race, or age, we are in this together. We hope this understanding makes us a stronger community with better immunity to fear and hatred that are far more dangerous than any virus. About Peng Wu, Aries Yuanzhou Qian, and Chun Yu: Wu is an interdisciplinary artist and designer dedicated to creating socially engaged art in public space. His work combines the power of design thinking with contemporary art strategies to address various urgent social issues including immigration, health disparity, queer rights, etc. Through collaborating across disciplines and cultures, he has created participatory art installations in institutions such as the Weisman Art Museum, Walker Art Center, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, as well as numerous public spaces and community centers. Yuanzhou Qian is a visual artist specializing in illustration, painting, and production design. Her artwork ranges from meditations on emotion through mythical world-building to interpretations of contemporary events through a classical Asian aesthetic and addressing social issues such as mental health and domestic violence. She co-founded Inispace, a production design studio based in Beijing, China. Past clients include HUAWEI, ANTA, FOTILE, and Tencent, etc. Her personal work has been exhibited at art institutions such as SooVac, Black and White Space, and Author Gallery. Yu is a native Chinese artist and production designer. He is trying to do better work.