Bernat Cedó (Institut d'Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya)
Behind closed doors
Award of Excellence
The COVID Experience
Doctors walking around, dressed in garbage bags. Nurses with glasses nailed to their skin so as not to become infected or contagious. Firefighters removing dead people from residences and handing out masks, gloves, and screens. Photojournalists capturing reality from the front line. Below you will see a story parallel to this one. While part of the population did their best to minimize the effects of COVID-19, and for 97 days, we were locked up at home, entertaining ourselves as best we could and with what we had at our disposal. A routine that consisted of having no routine.
Story: Behind closed doors
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At home, we took the first days of confinement as a vacation. not all the processes for working and studying online had been streamlined yet, so we just waited
Story: Behind closed doors
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Everyone took the opportunity to do things they had pending at home. Painting the walls, re-reading that book we had for a long time, spending time with the brothers ... the confinement caused a reconnection of who we are and what we need, what does not give us every day time to do
Story: Behind closed doors
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Doing sports was also one of the things that started to be done, but in a way that had never been done... in 15 days, everyone was talking about different channels and platforms where you could find exercise routines of your level.
Story: Behind closed doors
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Family lunches were also conditioned, but even so, in the times and conditions in which we live, there is nothing that cannot be stopped, we just adapt. In the photo, celebration of the popular Easter party, where every year we gather with the whole family and prepare cakes for others.
Story: Behind closed doors
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During confinement dogs could be walked around, to defecate and without interacting with anyone. Here in Spain, however, there have been fines for people who have gone for a walk too far ... or were carrying a stuffed dog
Story: Behind closed doors
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Waking up early, working, cooking, cleaning, doing housework, sleeping...
Story: Behind closed doors
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Waking up late, doing homework, watching TV, doing some sports, playing on the computer late, sleeping...
Story: Behind closed doors
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Probably in Spain, the most emblematic birthday is 18 years old. From there, you can drive, drink alcohol legally, vote, get away from home ... My brother even had a party ready, which he organized together with 2 other friends who were also doing the years for those dates. They wanted to rent a summer camp house and split expenses among the three. in the end, he had to celebrate it only with family ... and with friends, at night, making video calls.
Story: Behind closed doors
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Being confined in a house with garden is a pleasure, a privilege. It is really fantastic, it serves to disconnect from the feeling of not having sky ... In Spain, 30% of homes have between 75 and 90 square meters (INE, Instituto Nacional de Estadística) and the larger the city, the less space per dwelling there are, reaching 70% flats of less than 90 square meters in cities of more than 500,000 inhabitants.
Story: Behind closed doors
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The routine is tiring. tired of doing nothing different, killing hours. sharing spaces is tricky, as the days go by, small routines adapt to get a little more individual freedom.
Story: Behind closed doors
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5 people, in the same house, and not knowing how long we will have to be closed often provoke arguments, small quarrels with the brothers, which usually end well ... In the photo, Marçal, my brother, is scolded for bothering to the other little brother, Jofre.
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In explaining this project I said we had no routines. It’s really not entirely true: after the first two weeks of confinement, we set one up, we all sat down together, watching TV series. or movies, when the ones we considered interesting ended ... It was cool to recover a "tradition" that we did when we were younger, and we didn't work, we didn't have appointments in the afternoon, we didn't stay with friends ... maybe we should rethink at some point the reason for so little free time, this mania that we have more and more to fill the whole space and not let anything happen by the improvised means...