Letting Days Go By (100 days of sheltering in place), 2021

Letting Days Go By: 100 Days of Sheltering in Place is a pinhole photography project that chronicles the days when the Corona virus first began spreading across the nation and world. The project started on March 15, 2020, and lasted for approximately 100 days.

While in quarantine, daily samples from my home life (a spritz of hand sanitizer, the last sheet of toilet paper, zinc lozenges, remnants from my kids’ haircut) were placed inside the chamber of homemade pinhole cameras and left in my yard for 100 days - one specimen a day, one camera at a time. I then pointed the cameras towards the sky. The interior objects created a direct imprint on the negative, while the mark of the sun’s pathway, rising and setting over the course of each exposure, created black lines that move across each composition.

Here, a tiny vitamin pill or candy wrapper becomes entwined with the larger universe in the sky. These small, seemingly insignificant objects collectively relate to a bigger picture - how the ordinary, everyday can be impacted by an epic event such as a global pandemic. The resulting images, shadowy forms floating in an abstract red space, resemble a specimen floating in a petri dish or a view of a virus under a microscope - ethereal, mysterious, obscure, to gross or disgusting.

A written list of each object, along with the date and other data (such as the daily death count), was noted in a journal. This diaristic record, like field notes, provides personal and social context to the project. Collectively, this visual and written account, some days humorous other times more somber, is a personal documentation of the events and objects that occupied our life during this challenging time of uncertainty. 

Intended as an installation and artist book, this project was supported by a micro-grant from the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research.