DIVISION
Zero Degrees.
What happens at zero degrees? Everything stops, frozen, unmoving. It is a moment of hibernation. A freezer in a working restaurant must be be kept at a temperature of approximately -18 °C, at the most. At the traditional milanese restaurant Antica Trattoria della Pesa, during the 2020 lockdowns, the freezer marked 0°C.
Mirroring the freezer’s temperature, the bustling environment which I grew up in, suddenly came to a halt. Daughter of the restaurant’s owner, I became increasingly frustrated with what I was witnessing both in my family’s business and in so many others’ around me. By documenting the paralysis that the Antica Trattoria della Pesa went through during this time, I felt like I was shedding light over a collective struggle: being frozen in time and divided together.
Antica Trattoria della Pesa - Viale Pasubio 10, 20154, Milan, Italy
Milan, 2020
Other than the industrial halt seen worldwide, another aspect which I found unfamiliar was that of mobility. Initially, the terror of COVID-19 was so great that people were afraid of even setting foot outside their homes. In a world where every problem has a pre-established solution and every disease, a cure, facing an unprecedented situation was utterly petrifying.
Milan, like so many other cities around the world, abruptly emptied. Streets were deserted and the only sound audible was that of ambulances charging to the rescue. To express this shared feeling of fear, almost agoraphobic, I explored the idea of photographing what was within sight from the square space of my home balcony.
