Tania Volobueva

be my Quarantine/ families in isolation

In this difficult moment for the whole world that puts humanity in front of a totally new challenge and for which no one was prepared, each of us should participate through their skills and their ability to support the community in the present, here and now, but with eyes already directed towards the new future that awaits us. To what will come.
Some families are apart and many people have found themselves isolated, far from their affections, from their beloved ones. Others, even if reunited, still cannot see their parents, their brothers and sisters, their friends. But many other people are lucky enough to be with those they love and are reunited with them within the four walls of their homes.
For two months many professionals have had to revolutionize their working day and reinvent themselves professionally. For many, in the world of art, culture and entertainment it was time to accentuate their creativity.
During this period I was able to put into practice projects that for years were navigating between my thoughts and my ambitions. One of them led me to rethink the concept of family portrait. One of the first expressions of photography that originated from the portrait commissioned to sculptors since antiquity and to painters, in its most modern sense, since the Renaissance. I found wonderful photos of family portraits during the Spanish flu pandemic of the last century that is where I drew my inspiration from.
My idea is to make family portraits through video calls, using simultaneously all the technology and devices that we have available. I enter homes all over the world to photograph through the screens and webcams of computer, tablet and phones of mine and my models’ gadgets, moments of intimacy and everyday life of home life.
Families have changed a lot from Spanish flu to Covid-19. My intent is also to give a picture, in addition to small and large traditional families, also to all other forms of family and the consequence of the family stretching that we are living in the last decades: the non-married couples, the one-person households, those living with pets, the elderly couples, the same-sex couples, the extended families and the social family.
I think Covid 19 is making us understand the importance of the family in all its forms. No restrictions.
And I think it's important to leave history with a photographic testimony of the moment that has upset our lives and that is also having a strong impact on our domestic relationships.