Portfolio Monika CHABICOVSKY

PORTFOLIO BY MONIKA CHABICOVSKY

Creative Documentary & Photojournalism by Magnum Photos & Spéos in Paris 2019 / 2020 Spéos Paris – École de photographie

Monika Chabicovsky

Trapped in Eternal Past Has the fear of Covid-19 created a new form of human cohabitation?

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Trapped in Eternal Past

BY MONIKA CHABICOVSKY

One feels tight and disoriented in this maze, like trapped in an eternal past. Nothing points to the present nor to a desirable future. The corridors and staircases to the psychiatric hospital Saint CĂ´me of HĂ´tel Dieu de Paris are sombre and impure. Only windows and rays of light between shadows suggest escapes from this confinement.

Hôtel-Dieu de Paris is the worldwide oldest still operating hospital, originally built in the 7th and 17th centuries.

When I first visited the psychiatric department of Hôtel-Dieu, I found myself in an atmosphere reminding me more of a prison than a hospital. The place attracted and repelled me at the same time and I went back again and again.

No one ever asked me anything. Sometimes I found myself face-to-face with patients. But I had misgivings about photographing them – because it would have added distance. On the contrary, I tried to put myself in their lifes, their feelings, and I started taking photographs very quietly.

Over time, I felt more and more trapped by the architecture, the atmosphere, the quietness – any noise and any ray of light counted. Fences and locked spaces, forming cages, were everywhere – some in real, some symbolic. I felt dominated by this architecture and atmosphere.

Only the many windows seemed like escapes. I went home every evening. But patients are trapped in this mysterious place. Hope they see the many windows among the cages and fences.

Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, France, 2020

Has the fear of Covid-19 created a new form of human cohabitation?

By MONIKA CHABICOVSKY

Has the fear of Covid-19 created a new form of human cohabitation?

Drastic political measures and the fear of Covid-19 have led to empty public spaces within a few weeks and dramatic changes in social behavior worldwide. But where is the path back to the human interaction we have known and lived before the crisis? Maybe there is no point of return and the physical and social distancing already represents the new sociological reality of the future.

Impressions collected in Japan, Austria and Switzerland between February and May 2020 suggest that tense atmosphere, anxiety and solitude might dominate our new form of human cohabitation for a long time.

Inside a Shinkansen in Hakone, Japan, March

Ishigaki Airport, Japan in March

Train station, Hakone, Japan, March. Just a few people are waiting for a Shinkansen to approach.

Lake Lucerne, Switzerland in April

Public transportation in Zurich, Switzerland in April

Nice, pink Corona virus models dangling from the ceiling behind a window in a Swiss villlage in March

In Geneva, Switzerland in May

The Helmhaus in Zurich, Switzerland, mentioned in 1253 as a court of criminal justice, April

Person queuing in front of a supermarket in Lucerne, Switzerland, keeping distance, March

Empty street on Saturday March 14th in Vienna‘s usually crowded 1st district

In the 1st district in Vienna in March

Closed restaurant in Vienna’s 1st district, March 14, 2020

Biography Born in Austria, Monika Chabicovsky graduated in toxicology and regulatory aspects of drug development. She built her initial professional career on cancer research and founded a consulting company supporting biotech and pharma companies with the development of new drugs and vaccines back in 2006. Enthusiasm in photography and the wish to visually share perspectives and specifically to catch the dynamic changes to personal and social identity popped up over the past years and thus, in 2019 she decided to study Creative Documentary & Photojournalism by Magnum Photos & SpÊos in Paris, France in parallel to further leading the consulting company ‌ requiring a lot of traveling worldwide – in previous times.

Contact Email Phone

monika.chabicovsky@monographs.cc +43 664 2378137

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Web

www.chabicovsky.photography www.visura.co/chabicovsky