Ashima Yadava
Front Yard
When
homes become shelters and the context is adversity, the space that once catered
to all of our needs and located us within a social hierarchy becomes a bunker
in which we hide. The experience of community is the greatest victim of this
global pandemic.
The
“front yard” is as much a space as it is a metaphor. As physical spaces, our homes
reflect the material successes of their inhabitants, along with their aesthetic
tastes, the ties that bind them. Confronted by the camera, the body language of
those who reside here frequently reveals tension, guardedness, and, at times, a
reflective silence or a joyous sense of togetherness.
Front Yard was shot across digital, analog, and
medium and large format. In a physical collaboration between the subjects and
the photographer, black-and-white images were handed to the families to color
as they wished, and then returned. At a time of social distancing, this exchange has
become a tactile performance, an affirmation of the material world in which we
all still dwell.
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