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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