Portrait of a Neighborhood
PORTRAIT OF A NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE TIME OF COVID-19
During the COVID-19 pandemic photographers around the world – many using mobile phones – are sharing quarantine images online; documenting how life has changed while also creating a global sense of togetherness during this difficult time.
Normally a textile artist, during COVID-19 Richmond-artist Colleen Haraden-Gorski has adopted Hipstamatic’s TinType iPhone App as a new medium. Through technology that is accessible, immediate and shareable she photographs her Richmond Annex neighbors and friends as a way of checking up on them while keeping a safe social distance. The body of work that has emerged using the black and white filter captures a sense of instantaneous pause and rewind, asking us to consider “now” as a moment in history, already removed from the noise and color of life as we knew it.
Over fifty photographs are featured here in this slideshow and more will be added over the course of the online project.
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
A local Richmond artist, Colleen Haraden-Gorski’s textile art practice focuses on place and shapes – maps, environment, historical ecology, water, hazards, and social justice issues around these themes. Her background and career in the earth sciences has included geomorphology and paleoseismology, geographic information systems (GIS), water resources, climate change impacts, and historical ecology – these emphases rely greatly on observation and visual representation. Her textile art work explores the intersection where history and geography collide. Through the lens of geomorphology – the study of the origin and evolution of topographic features and their responses to change – be it rivers, faults, or humans – she uses both current and historic maps to visualize pre-urbanism and future conditions, such as climate change impacts. Haraden-Gorski’s contribution to RAC’s exhibition Right Here, Right Now explored the impacts of sea-level rise in Richmond. She created a textile piece to inform the community of the higher risk we face from sea level rise, in particular, overlaying areas of sea-level rise layers with areas of social vulnerability, communities with limited means to prepare and respond to hazards like flooding. Currently, Haraden-Gorski is developing a series of work around climate change, sea-level rise, and the melting polar ice caps. Follow this ongoing project on Instagram at @colleen_haraden_studio and @chlojomama.
ABOUT THE ONLINE PROJECT SPACE
RAC’s new initiative – the Online Project Space – was created in response to the multitude of ideas and new forms of creative expression we see artists tackling as they shelter-in-place due to COVID-19. The Online Project Space will highlight new artist projects that represent how artists are adapting, responding and imagining during this period of self-isolation.
