“There is another world, but it is in this one,” said Surrealist poet Paul Éluard. In this exhibition, artists look to the future, imagining how we move forward from the tumultuous events of the past year. [read more]
Art in the Plague Year is an online exhibition organized by UCR ARTS: California Museum of Photography and curated by Douglas McCulloh, Nikolay Maslov, and Rita Sobreiro Souther. UCR ARTS’s programs are supported by UCR College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the City of Riverside, Altura Credit Union, and Anheuser-Busch.
All works in this exhibition are reproduced with permission of the artists/copyright holders. Works (images, video, audio or other content) must not be used or reproduced for any purposes other than fair use without prior consent of the artists.
(b. 1980, Rome, Italy. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA)
Breathing Zone
Gionatan Tecle’s Breathing Zone photographs feel isolated, haunted, claustrophobic. The project started with curiosity about how the artist filmmaker and his partner occupy their one-bedroom apartment, especially as viewed through the context of Covid-19 social distancing. Tecle was moved by the ‘3 to 6 feet rule—“if I stand within 3 to 6 feet of someone, they may inhale some of what I exhale.” The space we inhabit is a bubble. With the coronavirus, that space becomes a literal measure of caution in public spaces. Tecle’s project extends that cautionary distance—and isolation—into the private space. The result: “A lack of exchange between people forced by the possibility of inhaling some of what I exhale.”
