Friendly Solutions
2020 - 21
This body of photographic work is a response to the Covid-19 Pandemic. We find ourselves at a dark time full of restrictions of our personal freedoms intended to protect us. Many have begrudgingly followed the guidelines of healthcare experts, while others have selfishly flaunted their efforts. A small number of individuals have stepped up to the plate with humorous, witty, creative, and friendly solutions and advice to the restrictions. This series is a document of their efforts. Art and photography are potentially ways of making sense of the connectedness of things, putting the world in order, and imagining a better world. With this sense of purpose in mind, I have walked with my camera mindfully, looking for the positive and the friendly in the forbidden outdoors. This has been a pleasurable undertaking, filled with discovery and surprise. In the spirit of Italo Calvino’s "Invisible Cities", I have endeavored to: “seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.” I hope it helps convince the unconverted that to take care of others is the cause of happiness. If so, then it has been useful, and maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s art at all.