Care Talk is an interactive storytelling project that amplifies and connects caregivers working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Care Talk project, utilizes a telephone voicemail system as a physically-distant platform for sharing stories. Caregivers and home care aides are invited to call or text a hotline number to record their personal experiences living and working during the COVID-19 pandemic. As more stories are shared, the Care Talk website will serve as an expanding public archive of these recordings.
Care Talk is initiated by L.A.-based artist Michael Rippens as part of his residency at Side Street Projects.
Michael Rippens is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores issues surrounding systemic inequality and imagines alternative ways to bridge gaps in existing structures. His projects reach across barriers, real and perceived, to emphasize the importance of human connection as a catalyst for change. Through performance, participatory works, and social engagement projects, Rippens initiates unexpected, personal interactions that build community, spur dialogue, and encourage reflection.
Rippens was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles. His mother immigrated to California from the Philippines in the early 1970s and studied nursing at Pasadena City College. She worked as an RN in Intensive Care, Cardiac Care, and Behavioral Sciences units at Huntington Memorial Hospital for over three decades. She left nursing to start up and manage a small caregiving agency which she operated for many years from a desk and telephone she had installed in her kitchen.
Care Talk is inspired by Rippens’ mother’s immigration story and her life-long commitment to helping others. This project pays homage to the many hardworking and dedicated caregivers that she worked with—most of whom were also Filipinos, immigrants and women of color.
Michael would like to acknowledge the following organizations & individuals who helped make the Care Talk project possible …
Side Street Projects
Este Sanchez
Emily Hopkins
Stephanie Aviles
Amy Ruvalcaba
Max Geldman
Dublab Radio
Rachel Day
Catherine Ceniza Choy
Aquilina Soriano Versoza
Hannah De Castro-Abinuman
Rose Castaneda
Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California
Grace Yeh
Rebecca Enecio
Alan Nakagawa
Rosten Woo
All the caregivers, home care aides and others who contributed their voices
& stories to the conversation
And, of course, his mom