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The Urban Void: Silence
Florence, Italy, motionless and deserted during lockdown. The city’s squares and churches seem straight out of an art history book, where people were removed from the pictures so that the focus would not be diverted from the architecture. The 10th edition of the Cortona on the Move international festival runs until 23 August. The Covid-19 Visual Project: A Time of Distance is an ongoing permanent archive on the coronavirus pandemic.
Photograph: Edoardo Delille
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The Urban Void: Lost Capital
A deserted London suddenly shines forth, after the signs of daily life (cars, trucks, people) are removed due to lockdown. Buildings look like their architect’s plans; unblotted, sharp. Simon Norfolk’s shots reveal a London as pure and immaculate as we’ve ever seen it.
Photograph: Simon Norfolk
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The Health Challenge: The Life and Death Shift
Laura Righetti, 30 years old, volunteer EMT for Croce Blu, Brescia, Italy: ‘I was teaching elementary school, going out with my friends to get an aperitivo after work. Now when we go into people’s houses, we scare them. They used to see our faces, but now we’re completely covered. It’s as if we’re aliens.’
Photograph: Andrea Frazzetta
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Shelter in Place: Outside
From the perspective of a terrace offering an 180-degree view of the city, Luis Cobelo recounts Barcelona’s lockdown. This work explores humanity in its new habits and new meeting places, socialising at a distance: roofs, balconies, windows.
Photograph: Luis Cobelo
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Shelter in Place: Sharing
Because of lockdown some families have managed to reunite. Others have remained separated, with members isolated in remote places and far from their loved ones. The concept of living together has thus changed, creating new relationships of forced sharing, with new use of space. COndiVIDendo 19 is a photographic and social project that looks at the co-habitation of Italian citizens during the health emergency.
Photograph: Mattia Crocetti
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Shelter in Place: Outside
Another picture by Luis Cobelo overlooking Barcelona in lockdown from a terrace.
Photograph: Luis Cobelo
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Shelter in Place: Scene
Opera singer and artist Laura Baldassarri singing Lascia ch’io Pianga by Handel. Since the first day of lockdown, flash mobs have been organised all over Italy. Windows, balconies, or any private spaces have been transformed into stages for music, songs or clapping in honour of medical staff. In Alex Majoli’s theatrical style, every image becomes an icon.
Photograph: Alex Majoli/Magnum Photos
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The Economic Effects: Local Business
Local shopkeepers in Italy have regained a commercial and social role in their neighbourhood that was thought to have been lost in Covid-19. Gabriele Galimberti visited them in Turin and Milan, as well as at his home in Florence, and photographed them in front of fully stocked counters.
Photograph: Gabriele Galimberti
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The Economic Effects: Contingency Plans
Prada is one of the leading luxury fashion brands in the world. It converted this factory in Perugia, Italy, from the production of clothing to making 110,000 face masks for the medical staff of Tuscany.
Photograph: Mattia Balsamini
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A Wounded Society: Locked in Beauty
Le Tre Grazie by Antonio Canova, in Galleria d’Italia, Milano. What do museums look like emptied of visitors? Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti had a unique opportunity to look inside some of the foremost museums in Italy. In search of beauty, they have tried to pull artworks out of the darkness and reinvent them with light.
Photograph: Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti
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A Wounded Society: 2Metres
Ritratti Mascherati in east London. These portraits were made on Ridley Road food market during lockdown. The red road markings were painted by Hackney council to indicate optimum social distancing. The photographs were taken with a constant, unchanging frame, capturing the different communities that rub up against each other in this space, hoping to give a sense of something uniquely local and global at the same time.
Photograph: Gideon Mendel
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A Wounded Society: Next Stop
For nine days, Daniele Ratti drove along Italy’s highways from south to north, then from east to west, meeting very few cars. These service stations during Coronavirus seem to have lost their meaning.
Photograph: Daniele Ratti
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Covid on Scene: The Dreams of Rome
Mo Scarpelli explores the resilience of our imagination in unpredictable times, as told by Romans through the dreams they’ve had during 50 days of strict quarantine.
Photograph: Mo Scarpelli
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Covid on Scene: The Silent Clapping of Their Hands
What makes Claudio – a showman and circus performer – so special is that he needs applause that is no longer there. Covid has made his existence even more fragile and solitary, and the images narrate that emptiness.
Photograph: Davide Bertuccio