On June 20, I received permission to photograph this woman holding a sign with a James Baldwin quotation, after a march from Union Square, up Sixth Avenue, and across Central Park South to Fifth Avenue and Trump Tower. Alas, I was not able to get her name or contact information.
Three-minute short film of the project, private and unlisted as of December 15, 2020:
https://youtu.be/sVxj9Btd9Gw
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On March 10, 2020, COVID-19 knocked me out. What scared me most during my illness–and 25 days of solitary quarantine–was my occluded breathing. For days it felt as if I were inhaling through a heavy, wet, woolen blanket. I recovered, grateful for my housemates’ care, and yearning to remedy the helplessness I felt while trapped inside my bedroom.
Amidst the pandemic, and our country’s long overdue reckoning with racism, I am engaged in an ongoing portrait project with over a thousand New Yorkers, all of whom have chosen to wear masks to protect one another, and who agreed to be photographed masked. Masked NYC is my effort to share the resilience, diversity, and dignity I have witnessed in my fellow New Yorkers in this exceptional moment in time.
My hope is that we will continue to strive for justice, health, and empathy toward one another moving forward–and that we may daily seek to see, respect, and celebrate one another’s radiance. Any profits from this project will be donated to the Know Your Rights Camp COVID-19 Relief Fund, founded to help address the pandemic’s disproportionate effect on our communities of color.
AJStetson.com
