Perth, Western Australia--"the most isolated city in the world". That ignoble title used to feel like a slap in our collective parochial faces. But even still that distance was not enough to protect us from the wave of Covid-19 cases that flooded onto our shores. This series is a personal project on being in isolation during the pandemic of 2020.
You know the saying ‘if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail’? Well, at the moment I cannot help but see everything through the lens of this Covid-19 isolation situation.
So, as I meander the neighbourhood streets at night the pools of light that punctuate the darkness create little worlds, isolated from each other, but each with its own story. And all of them combine to form the bigger picture of who we are–-the overstory of our neighbourhood in this time that is odd and off-beat, yet vital and hopeful.
As the sun goes down the street lights, fluorescent bulbs and sensor lights flick on, like spot lights illuminating myriad mini stages. And just like an audience who must stay in our seats during the show, and just like people in isolation who need to remain apart yet stay connected, all we can do is look on, through the darkness into other pools of light to see what story is unfolding. Some pools of light are warm and interesting and inviting. Some feel a bit stark, clinical, functional. Institutional. Some provoke a smile or a laugh. Some suggest something going on behind the scenes and I can’t quite look away as I am convinced something–someone–will be revealed. Some pools of light are frightening. They look like the stuff of nightmares, they hint at madness and twisting discomfort. Others make me lonely as I hide out in the shadows watching them from the safety of darkness. Some pools of light show up remnants of my past, making me slow down, reminisce, then walk on by.