Curator’s Note
Our exhibit is titled “The New Normal” because we want to express how people’s lives have changed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Everyone’s lives were affected in some way from the pandemic, whether it be loss of a loved one, loss of jobs, or homes to even smaller affects like loss of socialization, we are all affected in some way. One of the areas that was and still is affecting businesses like restaurants and retail stores. Because of the pandemic, people are less likely to eat out at restaurants or go into stores because there is a great deal of fear associated with these simple tasks. Businesses had to problem-solve and brainstorm new ways to drum up business.
The challenge of generating customers and business forced these different companies to think outside of the box. Restaurants converted to more pick-up orders and provided outdoor and separated seating while businesses limited the number of customers in the stores and put up signs about wearing masks and staying 6 feet apart. These ideas allowed customers to feel safer in the stores and restaurants therefore encouraging them to come back. These ideas significantly helped the businesses financially and the economy overall. While 2020 was a difficult time for many people, it hit businesses, especially small businesses, hard, so by using new marketing ideas and implementing safety precautions into their stores and restaurants, these businesses were able to bring in more customers.
We wanted to represent part of what we have been doing throughout our Arts in NYC class. One of our main projects was an Instagram project. Each week we had to take 4-6 photographs surrounding a theme. We believe that through this project we have a closer connection to photography in general. We wanted that connection to be represented in our project, so we decided to have part of the focus be on the businesses themselves and the other part to be on the photographs we have taken. Most of the photographs are from our point of view and were taken by us walking through our neighborhoods, and we wanted to record our perspective on businesses. There is not only the opportunity in this exhibit to represent the businesses and their struggles and adaptations, but also to show how a few college students view these changes.
The use of photography as the sole form of media was strategic. We feel that the extent of the obstacles and adjustments these businesses have had is best expressed and done justice through photographs. We feel that photography is a very powerful art form and we feel that the impact of COVID-19 of these businesses is best represented through an art form like photography. What is happening now as we are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic is unexplainable. It would be hard to describe the feeling that we got when looking at photographs we had taken. If we had tried to recreate them in a different art form, we feel the message and the impact seen through these businesses would not be done justice. Nothing that we could’ve recreated would compete with the impact of the photographs. Additionally, seeing that the pandemic is a modern day issue, it would only be fitting that a modern form of artwork, digital photography, be used. Photography is versatile, it lets us easily portray the image we want by just moving around. With painting or other art forms, we wouldn’t be able to capture the types of perspectives of our topic that we wanted as easily, nor would we be able to show what we wanted as clearly.
The purpose of our exhibit is to record this period of time for people in the future to learn about and to capture the essence of what it is like for businesses during the pandemic. We want to record these chosen photographs for people in the future who are studying this period of time or are curious as to how businesses were affected by the pandemic and the ways they adapted to survive the halt in consumerism. Our wish is that the viewers of the exhibit appreciate and understand the challenges that businesses faced during this time, especially in America, as people have never experienced anything like this virus in modern day time. Because we feel photography is such a powerful medium, our final goal is that we wish our photographs convey how different businesses are compared to the last 10, 20, or even 50 years. As smaller businesses continue to struggle every day, we hope that our exhibit shows a sliver of how they have adapted to the changing social and economic times. The pandemic is truly an unforgettable event and deserves to be documented as such.
