WINTER SLEEPERS

series

I began shooting this series in the midst of winter, during the second pandemic lockdowns, when the whole world was on hold. At the time, after an avalanche of turbulences, I had just moved to a new city where I did not know anyone. But by a series of coincidences I had ended up temporarily residing at one of the oldest and most picturesque houses in the center of town, with a secret walled garden behind ancient Medieval city walls. The windows in the living room were huge, the light was magnificent. In fact, perfect for taking pictures. So during that long winter my daughters and I were walled up in a bubble of light – hibernating, cocooning, photosynthesising, metamorphosing. The bleak state of the outside world had forced me to turn my lens inwards, to the microcosmos of my home. I have never felt more urgency to create. For the sake of my own mental sanity, and the wellbeing of my daughters who were struggling to make sense of the situation. And since a long long time there was time to read poetry again. This fragment from Nikita Gill's poem Love in the Time of the Coronavirus was our mantra: 

Even in sickness, this world

is allowed to be beautiful.

And we are still allowed to love it,

for there is always room for hope.