I Am Your Monolith (2020-2021)

2020-2021 has been an unforgettable time in history. The whole world has experienced extreme hardship due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. I have gone out regularly to photograph New York City in crisis. I discovered the most interesting visual contrast was between the boarded-up high-end stores, such as Chanel, Fendi— stores that symbolize vast wealth and exclusivity, the most glorified image of New York City — and the ugly, hastily installed plywood panels. Some of the boards are used to protect the windows against looting; Some are used to cover up the shattered windows; Some are used to seal the businesses that are permanently closed. I like to capture fleeting, seemingly incidental moments that actually signal profound historical shifts. The title is inspired by the Black Monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The large not manmade rectangle stone stands for something otherworldly and ambivalently. Looking into the blankness of these wooden panels in my photos, the makeshift symbolic monoliths of 2020, one can feel a sense of failure and end. The boards also serve as a signal for some new tectonic shift, a metaphor for our new surreal reality.