urban isolation

I began this series of photographs at the onset of the coronavirus in March 2020. A sense of overwhelming loneliness and isolation arose out of the necessity to remain distanced from almost everyone and everything. The weeks and months that followed began to change the landscape of what was familiar. Yet, what did remain was the urban environment dominated by buildings, cement and occasional greenery. This densely populated area of cultures, face-to-face education, and all aspects of progress came to a halt. Social distancing, social isolation, loneliness, self-quarantine, all have become the primary means of combating the invisible disease and not so invisible pandemic.

As economic growth has ceased, alternate means of caring and maintaining an urban environment have surfaced. Relying on our individual models and the existing programs of action that surround us have been challenged. Public policies addressing the needs of global health as well as economic and climate issues have taken the forefront.

The feeling of sameness, of maintaining a certain homeostasis is apparent as I went from building to building feeling the isolation, the solitude. The photographs are all somewhat the same and possess similar qualities. It is an unavoidable collision and conflict that exists in the way we see and what we feel. There is the self that is concealed and the self that adapts to the environment. Yet, what remains is the sense of vastness—the blue sky with enormous clouds. There is a larger world, a universe which is out of our control. The urban landscape maintains a certain grit in contract with nature, a larger force….a virus that is in the air…which we are slowly dismantling and eradicating.