Not just interrupted. Brought to a standstill. By something that can’t even be seen by the human eye, so tiny it is measured in microns and nanometers — millionths and billionths of inches.
The coronavirus, or COVID-19, has wreaked havoc across the globe. As I write this on May 14, 2020, the official number of confirmed cases worldwide has just topped 4.5 million. There have been 303,345 deaths and 1,703,744 million people who have recovered. Economies have been devastated, unemployment levels in the U.S. have risen to levels not seen since the Great Depression, and structural inequities everywhere have been laid bare on a daily basis.
Still, like millions of people around the globe, the photographers of VII Photo have struggled—and continue to struggle — to make sense of this upside-down world, to define our humanity, to help frame the portal that is opening into a new world and all the choices that lie ahead. Some of us have been able to venture out into our communities; some of us have stayed at home.
“Chapter 4: Interrupted” is a moment in time in the middle of all this, a blink of an eye, and yet also an act of witnessing.
Text by Sara Terry/VII Photo.
