New Normal New York

     Right after Cuomo announced lock down, our 50” TV we barely ever turn on was playing 24/7 news sound bites on Covid-19 death tolls, elections, wildfires, hurricanes, George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests. It was quite jarring - the difference in temperature of what I felt in my tiny room and what the media was broadcasting. One September night as I lay atrophied, I sensed a visceral compulsion to do something. To see for myself what’s actually going on “out there”. How people’s lives were unfolding through the pandemic in real time.

     So I started a new work called New Normal NY, 2020-ongoing. While strictly following CDC’s guidelines, I visited different neighborhoods to interview people of all gender, race, age, and political affiliation. I wanted to create a platform, a place to put to center stage our voices, the detail of our lives and portraits of our stories. The only way to mend and repair the torn fabric of our social cohesion is to get proximate to all constituents. This year of uncertainty is shaping our new normal. Instead of waiting for it to dawn, this is one of the rarest opportunities to reconstruct a new reality, to reimagine different futurities. These photographs will be historical evidence of the ephemeral turn from what was to what is.