Artists Finding Meaning through Pandemic Images: Meanings of the Pandemic through Photographs View Digital Media

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Janet Sternburg  

In the year of the pandemic, I’ve been walking with heightened intensity. I’ve gone to the geographical edges of Los Angeles County, photographing what I’ve come to think of as a kind of fullness – an enlargement of the senses that can be found in the midst of emptiness -- and of beauty gained through looking at what is revealed between the bare branches of loss. I do not mean to turn the griefs and losses caused by Covid 19 into artistic gain. I do mean that we are enlarged when we become part of the landscape of all of us. I walked near the ocean at the southern tip of Los Angeles and in Green Valley near the northern edge. I’ve walked with hope and despair in my lens, often together, and sometimes – thank goodness – mingled with delight in discovery. I’ve been hearing people say that it is difficult for them to cope with the present uncertainty. My own belief is that we were never promised certainty. Art, however – making it, experiencing it – can clear paths to go forward in uncertain times. There is a line I love in a poem by Antonio Machado: Traveler, there is no path, you make the path as you walk. My new book, I've Been Walking, is that path. It includes a conversation between myself and philosopher Jane Bennett, in which we discuss the meanings of this past year.