COndiVIDere
Sharing Time, Spaces, Food, and Emotions During the 2020 Lockdowns in Italy
6 min read by lorenzo.stolfi.Published on . Updated on .
Condividere, v.: to share/divide amongst others (Italian).
When a word is repeated too often, it loses its meaning — as noted by the famous Italian filmmaker, Federico Fellini.
In the context of social networks, sharing takes on the meaning of an obsessive broadcasting of daily routines. Compounded over billions of users’, sharing, today, is a googolplex of multimedia content that tells our lives’ stories in a superficial, banal way. This sort of sharing is often just a facade, a filter, or a performance act that hides our true feelings and selves.
The recent health emergency in Italy forced the government to take drastic measures; the entire population is in the lockdown, forced to watch the growing numbers of deaths and infections, paralyzed in our dwellings. And thus, out of necessity, we now share something new and authentic. We share our fears, worries, anger, and sadness; we share each other’s company as we wait for yet another set of six o’clock announcements from the health and government officials.
✪ Note: This is a digital reprint of an essay originally published in Monochrome 1.20 — a community photography magazine by Analog.Cafe. You can read it along with 13 more authors’ works on paper, the way they were intended to be. Get your copy of Monochrome here and support our charitable cause.
In our shared rooms, homes, apartments, we try to divert our attention away from the crisis through cooking, exercising, movies, reading. Worn, our minds nevertheless drift towards the people in the hospitals and their families.
This series of photographs aims to showcase the rediscovery of authentic human emotions. It is incredible to think that such apostasies are often limited to dire events.
We should ask ourselves: why?
All images shot on Ilford HP5+ @ISO400 — developed in Rollei Supergrain 1+9, Bellini STOP Oudorless 1+19 stop bath, Bellini FX100 1+4 fixer. Printed on Foma speed RC Multigrade matt 24x30 — developed in Bellini D100 1+9, Bellini STOP Oudorless 1+19 stop bath, Bellini FX100 1+4 fixer.
What you see here are print scans, not the negatives.