ISOLATION

Photobook by Flávio Andrade
Published by Flankus Books

ISOLATION is inspired by the reality of the state of emergency that led to the confinement imposed by the Portuguese State in the face of the exceptional situation of world public health and the proliferation of registered cases of contagion of COVID-19 decreed on March 18, 2020, by the President of the Republic.

After re-reading Gilles Lipovetsky’s The Age do Void, I reflected on the individualistic society of the seventies of the twentieth century, which Lipovetsky describes and the way we live and think in this twenty-first century. This narcissistic and self-centered place where the self is the commonplace and which seems to have intensified over the years; imprisoned, in ourselves, without being able to do what we want, as if we were in a cell, conditioned; without the freedom to circulate, socialize, travel and share live and in real-time. I felt a certain resignation, of what we are, want, and do. Where’s the other’s place? Sharing, solidarity? We live parallel lives — The one we think about and the one we can be. Enhanced by confinement, in a superficial and virtual experience, in many cases, isolation forces us to experience our physical and psychological limits, forcing us to think about the existence and uncertainties of tomorrow. This leads us to certain feelings and behaviors, here photographically recreated, in a self-portrait.

ISOLATION, came to be a surprise, due to the possibility that, even confined to four walls, there is an emotional release that surpassed the physical barrier. These photographs are my vision, of what I feel, of what others feel and, or, felt, in these moments that we all experience.