Bethesda Fountain, New York October of 2020

On Exteriors and Interiors of a Pandemic
This project  started in late February 2020 as a series of photographs of the Covid-19 pandemic's effects on New York City. Riding my bike from my apartment in the Bronx to Times Square and then on to Brooklyn, it was truly shocking to see empty streets in New York.  In the city that never sleeps, crowds were replaced by silence and emptiness.  Here in broad daylight, I was walking and biking into a surreal landscape and a strange and desolate city.

 The psychological impact of the lockdowns and the ensuing  social isolation triggered a reflection about how the Pandemic transformed not just the outside world but also our inner world. This series serves as a record of my interior thoughts and feelings.  In the midst of the nightmare, I found a way of coping and  also an opportunity to channel the anxiety outward. 

Taking photographs served a two-fold purpose. While exploring a transformed landscape, I was able to not only to record the outside but also  to project onto it my own personal thoughts and feelings.

An unprecedented  health crisis and unspeakable death and loss gave way to  an uprising against racism.  As many as 26 million people in the US demonstrated against the murder of George Floyd during the height of the pandemic.

In this series of photographs, the pandemic and the anti-racist rebellion merged into one. Through this lens, I tell a story of a profound crisis and of powerful resistance.