Photographer Francesco Bittichesu shot the eerily quiet streets of New York during 2020.
March 2020
“Handshakes are few, hugs too, which science proves to be very positive for people, and in public spaces people are now consciously distancing themselves from others.
Presently as we experience Covid 19, life becomes a gigantic streaming event and our dependence on the web punctuates the day more than it had. We don’t meet people, but we chat with them, we don’t go to church, but we connect on Facebook, we no longer go to the office, but we do remote working,
We moved from visiting relatives and friends to video chatting. True?
I’m not afraid of the coronavirus but the loneliness it may create. For this we must be united.
Streets once bustling, now serene yet ominously silent. What would have been to a photographer’s eyes a cinematic scene, is now a stark reality revealing a new rhythm and cadence to the streets.”
UPDATE 2022
Two years down the road I am honoured to share the ‘Cosmopolitan Isolation, New York. – UNITED STATES, 03.2020 – 05.2020’ project for the first time.
The 2020 words written above were current and still are to a certain extent in 2022. I had the opportunity to witness a very dramatic moment in the history of New York City. New York is my first home, I took thousands of photos during the lockdown, uncovering an aspect that I would never have thought possible to happen: the unexpected absence of people and energy, so much present in the New York common imaginary!
