Project Description

Our social Distance is a personal documentation project born out of frustration from the physical-distancing imposed by the Covid19 pandemic.Unable to physically create photographic portraiture, and interact with subjects, I have been experimenting with online video via livestream to test the boundaries of the creative constraints we find ourselves in 2020. I was also asking my subjects to share about their lockdown and write down their thoughts on what their dreams, hopes and wishes are and what kind of World they want to live in are after Covid.

Adaptation is of particular importance to me during these times. I have become interested in the various ways people worldwide are morphing their behaviours, routines and lives to adapt to their new realities. One of the major hurdles was with the technology itself. The stability of internet connections determined the quality of the photographic image, which posed questions about limitations of the current technology in relation to aesthetics and quality of images possible using this technology. 

Thus the series also poses questions on the future of photography and the ever-increasing role of screens in our lives. What does the future of photography look like? Will phones, computers, tablets and other devices move further into the photographic conversation? Will we see a rise of photography through screens, and if so, what obstacles and opportunities will this afford us? Is the screen a distortion of reality or a reflection of our 2020 times?And how is the current pandemic altering how we view ourselves and each other?Furthermore, if new super viruses emerge to threaten our way of life in the future, will photographers be forced to move further to adaptive means of creating photography projects? I am exploring these ideas through this project. And how might our image quality perception change when we  have boundaries imposed by modern technology? What will be acceptable and what  not?

The project began in March 2020 and is ongoing. To date, I have taken  portraits of people in America, Indonesia, Hungary, Israel, Singapore, Denmark, Italy, Thailand and New Zealand. This has been a learning photographic project for me. I have found unique relationships forming with subjects through the online calls through the screen. While I am photographing strangers, the encounters also turned into conversations, like first meetings in new social environments of these times.  Due to the unique nature of the technology, the portraits were made with equal interaction between myself and the subject.

This was not merely a passive shoot. I worked with subjects to prepare their own costume, props and settings. Subjects also shot images on their phones and sent them to me, which I edited together in post-production. Each photo shoot was also a social interaction and a learning process for both of us.  As a reflection of their enforced self-isolation, I experimented by altering layers of their images, of colors, of light and in some cases using the computer monitor as a frame to reflect a loss of control.  The manipulation served the purpose of creating questions with the viewer to echo the times.  It is a time when people are asking themselves fundamental questions about our own place and the realities we have formed of ourselves.  Can one tell that all these images were shot through a screen? 

At times, the process of the project felt restricted in terms of image quality and internet limitations, however, it has also been liberating to create something new and different and I hope many people can get access to the same feeling in many different ways during this period as a time of reset and re-evaluation of our values.

Featured in Art Of The Isolation Magazine, SuperNormal Magazine

Exhibited at The Man and The Machine exhibition by Loosen Art Gallery in Rome