Connected: "Untitled, #6"

2020: Atlanta, Georgia
Medium-format film, Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex
Edition of 25
Not framed, will be shipped flat in mat board

Project title: Keeping Connected Holds the Structure Up

One of the greatest challenges everyone has faced during the pandemic is the need to stay connected with each other. For the first time in history, the world has challenged the traditional notions of work and relationships by moving life online, testing the powers of the internet while seeing how far this new system of living can keep people satisfied and motivated.

At first, I readily accepted this new momentum in life. Things started slowing down and people started relishing the quiet life at home. Being an introvert, I embraced the change and was glad the world finally catered to the other side of the social spectrum. But after three months of nonstop sheltering in-place at home, I felt a surge of needing to get out and connect with other humans face-to-face. I have learned that community is so important and though the online world can fill that satisfaction for a period of time, nothing can fully replace physical interaction with others. Without staying connected to community, our mental health and structure would collapse.

The same is true for architecture.

Without all the material and building blocks staying physically connected, the structure would immediately fall. Our communities are the building blocks of our mental health.

Every person I have talked to agrees with me on this feeling of desperately longing to pop out of our cocoon and experience the world as it used to be to maintain our mental and social sanity. But when will everything return to normal? And will it ever even return to the life we used to know? We still have many unanswered questions but staying connected and in community together throughout this uncertain time will help support our structure and keep us standing strong.

My work for this project reflects the idea of staying connected both in terms of an architectural structure but also the structure and stabilization of our mental health.