Coronavirus

In the surreal situation that we unfortunately experienced, I reflected a lot on the minds of children and how they may have lived and still live what surrounds them.

What is coronavirus for them?

How do they imagine it and how would they represent it? Is it a bad monster with long claws or is it a swarm of invisible soap bubbles flying through the air? Is it a bad flu or simply something that doesn’t allow us to leave the house? I wanted to put this question at the center of my project and, writing it in black and white, ask the children. “What is the coronavirus?”.

Leaving at their disposal colored pencils or crayons to create their drawing and adding a descriptive textual part. Being a photographer my task was to combine the drawing with the photographs which are portraits on a white backdrop while I ask the children to put a tongue out of the coronavirus. The essence of this work is the mosaic of different interpretations that only the pure imagination of children can give. I found many differences in the child’s creative / logical mental process based on age or the surrounding context that made the interpretations even more original and personal. Another of the reasons that prompted me to deal with a heavy and complicated issue like this of the coronavirus was the genuine lightness of children who transformed a negative and cruel idea into something colorful and nice.

Going back to our childhood and the simplicity with which we faced the days is a way to feel free and light again, even if only for five minutes, and have a tongue at the coronavirus.