A window into isolation
Soup asked a varied group of photographers to document the feeling that isolation has left them with.
We’ve all come back home. And in coming back, some of us have found the vastness of small spaces and carved out our corners in them. We’ve heard the new sounds of hushed cities. The too-closeness of loved ones and the utter bleakness of losing the freedom we once took for granted.
There is a possibility that we will now have to create a world that’s vastly different from the one we’ve always known. As the virus lurks in the air, wrecking lives, livelihoods, and economies, a ‘new normal’ has unfolded where lives under quarantine have been delicately built in fear, solitude, hysteria, boredom and sometimes even a measure of hope.
Soup asked a diverse group of photographers to document the feeling that quarantine has left them with. And with varied styles and temperaments, we’ve found a window into different worlds.
Aparna Nori
End Everything to Begin Again.
Week Two of lockdown, April 2020.
The world finds comfort standing six feet apart and I seek mine in the uneasy rhythm of meal times and content chasing. I say hello to my neighbour and to the cat who curls up on the watchman’s chair. Moments slow down, forcing me to see things of no consequence. How many fruits does a bat eat in a night? Do fallen flowers turn into stars in the night sky?
As today slips into tomorrow slips into the next day, familiar spaces begin to feel surreal, as if I am walking through the pages of a story. My mind starts to highlight the drama of the everyday mundane, writing its own plot. This visual narrative strives to connect some of the random musings that dot my mental landscape.
Outside, the world is still on a long break.
Searching for a starting point to write a new chapter.
Hashim Badani
Lockdown. As I’ve come to accept, even embrace, our new reality my idea of it has begun to slowly expand to include people who have been living some version of this for a while. I’ve found myself thinking about my parents differently. How age has slowly peeled away little liberties we’re only now universally realising that we took for granted.
My father doesn't leave the house as often as he did a few years ago owing to health issues, and my mother invariably ends up spending more time at home with him. In their larger loss of movement, it’s the little things I miss. How he used to help my mother pick out clothes when he’d stand in the balcony taking deep breaths as his version of yoga, their impromptu evening walks on Marine Drive.
These walls, the copper pod trees that bloom outside our home, a routine that rarely changes. This is now their world. Sometimes, on a sunny afternoon, a game of cards becomes their gateway.
Maybe a few moments of simplicity and sweetness are the only thing we’ll remember when this is all over.
Gopal MS
The lockdown of endless consumption
Two images that reflected what I thought was happening - a pause in our life of endless consumption, on-demand gluttony, the urge to travel for a few hours to far off places, often burning fuel for longer than the time one spends at a location.
Madhavan Palanisamy
This is my living room where there are books, music and light. I draw here. I think of ideas, fool-around, eat. And sometimes I have conversations with myself.
Magali Couffon
I’m confined with my ten-year-old and the thirteen-year-old son of my partner, for the past three weeks. I’ve been working on an idea with the theme of crucifixion that revolves around the concepts of a child, teen and man. It’s a work in progress.
Mourya Dandu
Stay safe and keep creating
Going into lockdown, I wanted to be hopeful, for I don't know how long this will last.
Ajatshatru Singh
This image of Mantra taken long after we wound up our shoot, gives me a feeling of uncertain times and a sense of loneliness.
Gorkey Patwal
While under lockdown, I’ve been shooting a music video for a song called ‘Rest’ by Sabu. The song fits perfectly with the time we have with us now to slow down. We were trying to be productive while being stuck at home and I photographed our help being himself, resting at home.
Aashim Tyagi
Z bought her bubble maker soon after New Year’s Day, the last of the Christmas-themed toys that our supermarket was selling. She declared that blowing bubbles makes her happy.
We had moved to Fiji just before the Citizenship Amendment Bill was introduced in India. It was surreal to watch the protests and the civil unrest unfold back home. Anxiety, anger, thoughts of the safety of our loved ones, the reality of what was happening was daunting. Before we could make sense of the escalating events in India, the COVID19 pandemic unleashed its chaos across the world.
Z has now been working from home. We seldom talk about how the next few months will play out for us or our families back home. Truth is, we don’t know. With the troubling identity shift in India and now this invisible illness that’s confined us at home, the distance between us and home seems unending on some days.
Z has been blowing bubbles almost every day now. I watch her and the bubbles filling the scene lending their little magic to our lives. I am aware it’s going to be an unnerving few months ahead but in this moment, I feel happy.
Curated by Soup Staff