The SAR-CoV-2 pandemic is responsible for more than 3 million deaths worldwide. Its effects are long-term; it is difficult to know exactly how long we will be dealing with them. No one fully knows or can predict this. It was hard to predict from the beginning what the post-pandemic landscape of the globe would be, whether we would recover quickly. The most important thing was the reflexes of positive behaviour. Help, solidarity, a desire to provide relief to those most affected and heartbroken. Many did not know how to behave, how to deal with this sudden situation. After a few months of slowing down, we longed for the times before the pandemic, it seemed to us a ‘lost good’. We missed the most important things: direct contact with loved ones or other people, a direct handshake or looking another person in the eye with love. For the things that cannot be bought, the things that testify to the quality of life. Lockdown, made us realise how we are a society in need of social connections.
An intermedia exhibition using fine analogue and digital photographic techniques, the ‘Renewal’ project presents reflections on the encounter of people from a wide spectrum of society with SAR-CoV-2. What has changed in their ‘Inner Landscape’, in their lives , in their perception of the world, what has ended? and what has begun? Using the medium of image and word, I reach into these intimate spaces of experience to release them.
A bright blaze of light blinds me,
I cover my eyes with my hand and touch my scalding temples
A penetrating and deep pain shatters my head,
The whole body writhing in strange painful spasms
I want to howl , but I can not even whisper
In the background the words of the doctor – “only not to the hospital – there despair.
Endure, endure, you must ”
Heavy clouds along with flashes of consciousness
Are fighting for precedence .
Suddenly I feel a cold compress on my forehead ,
I sip more pyralgins
I can not move my left hand, I try my right hand,
It is better, I reach my mouth, desert and convulsions.
Tries again, even worse.
The tongue slowly detaches from the palate,
I want to move, but the body does not listen
And everything hurts cruelly.
Finally, the water arrives and gently cools the mouth and throat.
Eve shouts – it’s better
after the seventh day you have dropped below 40 degrees.
Begging the Lord I try to reach the toilet ,
After the second fall I am at my destination.
Oh Jesus maybe I will survive…..
My legs go numb and I don’t have the strength to get up.
I suddenly hear the voice of my son
and it is he who helps me reach the bed.
Finally I see His face,
I ask about the day and what’s going on.
I feel Luke’s warm hand and Eve’s voice in the distance.
Providence has hugged me once again.
Zbyszek Podsiadlo
