Celine Croze
by Celine Croze from Paris, France
When the confinement began I was in Venezuela, cut off from everything and very far from the reality that was going to impact the whole world. Bacteria almost killed me in the rainforest and I got back to Paris, sick and weak. The city was deserted and only a few masked ghosts ventured outside. The vision of this new perspective of life terrorized me. At the beginning, I could not face the outside world. My sister was shopping for me. We didn't touch each other, she stayed at the door with her mask on. It was strange and painful. Then I came back to life and found myself face to face with my own reflection; my loneliness, my faults, what I had built, what I had destroyed. The universe needed to tell us something, warn us about our cruelty and silliness. But beyond that, I learned about myself, and the future human being I will become. I experienced infinite and weird identical days, trying to figure out why the nothingness and timelessness were so bewitching and confusing. I never felt bored; this time was essential. My self-portrait is the result of a beautiful and terrific journey into the darkness, my own darkness. The forty identical photos symbolize the quarantine and the same repetitions of a day by day with myself. I had to transcribe how I was feeling during that period I was melting, disintegrating into a world that had become mine, or had become different, probably the reason why I’m not clearly identifiable in the photos. A new shape and a new envelope that would no longer have a face or a body. Just my soul finally ready to change, to transmute from shadow to light.
SELF-PORTRAITS: PHOTOGRAPHERS IN CONFINEMENT
Curated by Svetlana Bachevanova (USA/France)
A collection of self-portraits made by photojournalists from five continents during the unprecedent lockdown due to the corona virus pandemic.
Photographers are people on the road, living to document the lives of others.
Constrained by the lockdown, many of them had their first experience of being still long enough to begin seeing and understanding small details about who they are, their lifestyles and values, that were overshadowed while they were busy. These self-portraits express their experience.
This is a unique collection of self-portraits from some of the best lenses in photojournalism at an historic moment.
Photographers in Confinement is a project in process and I welcome additional submissions from photojournalists at svetlana@fotoevidence.com
I am looking for potential exhibition partners in the USA and abroad.
Svetlana Bachevanova is a founder and publisher of FotoEvidence, long time photojournalist and curator.
