I made this series in 2018, long before coronavirus was an everyday term.

 

At the time, I was interested in exploring the multitude of factors that cause people to feel isolated. A prominent conclusion I came to was that stress is a major contributor to self-isolation. In my own experience, I began to feel isolated and removed when all aspects of my life got more stressful causing anxiety. I was interested in this because it was important for me to learn my limits, and how to cope with and manage pressure. Instead of confronting the problem, often destructive behavior results because of stress. I was determined to acquire resilience and self-control in order to avoid feelings of seclusion.

 

This series represents my own sense of personal isolation. To find some solace and peace of mind, I often found myself seeking places where there were no other people. To capture this, I took models to locations where there is silence. The locations were in relatively busy areas, but once we entered the buildings, we almost immediately forgot about life outside and were captivated by the abnormality of our new surroundings. Our interest shifted to the silence, an experience that allowed for heightened introspection and also manifested fear and discomfort from the uncertainty of what might be lurking around a corner in the building and also inside your own thoughts and emotions. The experience was very similar to feelings of isolation in the sense that we couldn’t be sure we might find.

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The COVID-19 pandemic attributed a new meaning to these images. Isolation has become a world-wide phenomenon. The weeks and months that many quarantined at home alone or with their families led to anxiety and frustration from mundanity and the inability to have real contact with much of the world. There is so much uncertainty in the world as people are threatened by a novel disease and sickness as well as divisive politics and a country as polarized as it’s ever been. The comorbid effects of all these stressors, combined with seclusion, forced us all to take inventory of what is important in our lives through introspection.