What does it mean to build bridges from inside while the outside is closed?

This post was written by Ursula Rucker, part of the 2020 Cohort of the Painted Bride’s Building Bridges: On the Rise project.

What does it mean to be Building Bridges now that we can’t physically go anywhere???

Now that we’re locked in our homes.

Confused. Frightening. Concerned. Hopeful. Wanting to be helpful.

The concept/idea/action of Building Bridges…if you ask me…is more profound than ever in the time of a global pandemic. New virtual communication and engagement Bridges and vehicles and means and ways are being built EVERYDAY. If there were no new social roads being built rite now…we’d have absolutely no way to continue engaging with one another while all daily public routine and engagement been halted and/or upheaved. It’s adaptation. It’s part of evolution. I hope we, do indeed, evolve.

Globally…we are up against an unexpected behemoth. So it will be “globally” that we fight and rise up over and through this new madness. What better way to connect…than to build a bridge? Together. There are all kinds. Of Bridges that is. Physical Bridges. Metaphysical Bridges. Metaphorical Bridges. You get the picture and idea, right?

My project idea (which I’m excited to begin working on this week)…to build from scratch and publicly present/share an anti-violence pro-peace Philly-centric anthem…in this time…with some brilliant young people and my co-musician/comrade/friend Miles Orion Butler…in the time of corona…and intense gentrification movement in my Germantown neighborhood…is the epitome of Building Bridges in action. Multigenerational Bridges. Cultural Bridges. Communal bridges. And perhaps most importantly…bridges between trauma and healing. And so on…

So c’mon…

Let’s build these bridges!

TOGETHER.

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Building Bridges is supported by Pennsylvania Humanities Council’s Pop-Up Grants for Cultural Producers.