La Notte /The Night; Love, Loss and Loneliness in the Age of Isolation

LA NOTTE / THE NIGHT

Love, Loss and Loneliness in the Age of Isolation

SIMON

MARCUS

SWALE

The trauma and the grief wrought, the deaths brought, seemed largely inconceivable in those closing months of 2019, as Covid 19 first began its insidious spread across the globe. Whatever one’s views on vaccinations, mandates, the efficacy of mask wearing, whatever one’s opinions on the source and origin of this virus, we must not lose sight of its true human cost upon families and communities worldwide.

Millions have died. Countless others are thankful to have endured and survived.Yet even those having escaped illness may nonetheless have been deeply affected. Job losses, job burnout, educational disappointments; the effect of lockdowns, and isolations takes their own toll. Often the personal costs remain hidden, situations occurring behind closed doors. The effects of Covid extend deep into the lives of individuals and communities alike.

Some of us have escaped these devastating consequences; safe and with families safe, for which we must be thankful. For those of us so lucky, the experience has however, not been without its challenges. The experience of living in the time of a global pandemic has disrupted perhaps, not just our lives, but our very sense of a life. Like some contemporary Divine Comedy, we all exist, waiting, in some form of purgatory for this nightmare to end.

Time itself seems somehow altered. In lockdown, time passes achingly, insufferably, as days drift and blur, fade and merge, into one another. Time, time, interminable time… ‘Covid time’ seems to exist as a kind of suspended time beyond our usual experience.

Henri Bergson would define such as durée, that experience of subjective lived time distinct from the objective time of watches, clocks and calendars. Bergson recognised time as lived, felt and acted, not simply quantified by science. Time is not always experienced as ordered, sequential, predictable. Covid has presented us with an uncertain time, an uncertain future, and our “waiting is not to be passed through.”1 Covid time is a time passed slowly…

Lockdowns situate us in a perpetual present, waiting and hoping. We live this experience collectively, yet do so in isolation from each other. We seem suck in what Maurice Blanchot calls an ‘unbearable present’; “a present without end and yet impossible as a present.”2 An experience seemingly without end, hope fades, and waiting transforms into suffering. These experiences are real and true, and are the symptoms of extraordinary events, the likes most of us have never previously experienced.

This work attempts to capture something of this historical moment, to capture in the moment something of the atmosphere. It is a memoriam to those who have passed and those who have survived. But also it is a memento to all who have endured and for what has been endured. It has been created out of the boredom, frustration, and anxiety this Covid situation has produced, but was made nonetheless in the belief that after this dark night will come a bright dawn that we can hope is near upon us.

So let us stay strong and be kind. Here exist 12 charms to galvanise the spirits as we endure together this time of LOVE, LOSS AND LONELINESS IN THE AGE OF ISOLATION.

1 Schweizer, Harold. On Waiting. Routledge, 2008. 112.

2 Blanchot, Maurice. The Infinite Conversation.Vol. 82. U of Minnesota Press, 1993. 44.

LA NOTTE / THE NIGHT: LOVE, LOSS AND LONELINESS IN THE AGE OF ISOLATION. A SERIES OF 12 CHARMS. POWDER COATED ALUMINUM Various Sizes, approximately 65mm X 5mm VIDEO. LENGTH 1:19

Video made for the occasion ‘SMCK ON REEL: The jewellery video festival at Schmuck / Munich’s jewelry week’, shown at WELTRAUM gallery, Munich. 10-13 March 2022.

Video and charms first shown together at The National, Otautahi / Christchurch as part of the Handshake project alumni exhibition. October- November 2022 ‘La Notte’ was first developed as a video making exercise under the direction of Estela Saez Vilanova, as part of the HANDSHAKE 6 mentorship programme. Special thanks go to Peter Deckers and Hilda Gasgard, the founders and directors of HANDSHAKE, Estela Saez Vilanova for her support, guidance and inspiration, and Caroline Billing for her support and the opportunity to show at The National.

SIMON MARCUS SWALE © 2022