Visual Arts / PHOTOGRAPHY
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CovidExpress
CovidExpress is a photographic project created by Josep-Maria Balanyà, after his confinement in Belgium, due to the Covid-19 and just after his heart-attack. The project consists of a photo exhibition and a video. The title of the video is CovidExpress, going nowhere. For many days in May 2020, he went to the Moeraske Park for a walk. Most of this site is in Evere, Brussels, Belgium and extends over 14 ha. In front of the northern part of the park, there is an expansive railroad hub linking the Schaerbeek Station, located 1 km to the west. There, Balanyà took a series of photos of the passing trains. Most of the train wagons were empty because of the Covid-19 situation. Sometimes there were a few passengers. Somehow, these photos reflect the sad times in which we live, the loneliness, the frustration produced by the lack of haptic communication. The trains that we can no longer take pass by empty. Travel is forbidden. Still, we can travel with our mind, with our soul. Of the series, Balanyà selected 13 photos, shot on May 15, 2020. Camera: Panasonic DMC-FZ 8. Camera lens: Leica The presentation of the photos is accompanied by a video, for which I have created both the image and the soundtrack, and entitled CovidExpress - going nowhere Barcelona, February 1, 2021
MOTION AND E-MOTION
Josep-Maria Balanyà's pictures are impressive at first sight. The expressive imagery clearly shows that the visible world is the occasion for the photos, but is also linked to an inner, emotional situation. In the compositions, calm, natural movements contrast with rapid, technical speed that the camera perceives as lines and blurring. Josep-Maria Balanyà sometimes selects shots in which artificial light and color effects further alienate visible reality. In this way the artist creates an own, subjective excerpt from the inner and outer world.
For a year now, the rules of personal communication have been changing or being replaced by electronic "meetings" because of the pandemic, conversations are seen as a "risk", music — especially singing— has become a major threat to the health of everyone involved. These are atrocities that affect everyone. The years 2020/21 will go down in the collective memory as years of Covid-19, presumably traumatically, as well as being passed on to the next generations as "oral history" and preserved.
Traveling and the associated expansion of experience, the lively and spontaneous intercultural exchange as well as working abroad are often of decisive importance for progress and success. Despite all concerns about the pollution of the environment, traveling for work or to meet friends and family is part of today's living. As the days of Covid-19 as a stowaway are numbered, it is traveling faster and faster around the world. The train transports everything - people and Covid-19. In pictures such as "Loneliness" Josep-Maria Balanyà shows in a very painful, poetic way the rarity, even almost illegal secrecy of human encounters. In order to ensure survival in the time of the pandemic, much of what was previously loved and valued is being given up. Can the exchange of culture, direct communication, free structures and human rights simply emerge again after the pandemic?
Josep-Maria Balanyà's pictures are characterized by the exciting choice of artistic and photographic means as well as the merging of reality and lyrical impression. The moments captured as if by chance show the fragility of a beloved world or the "being lost" in a strange situation, almost casually what make the pictures something special - beyond the current pandemic.
Dr. Gabriele Lohberg, art historian, art management, expert for modern and contemporary art, former head of the European Academy of Fine Arts, Trier, Germany.
