> Words: shouted, blabbered, shattered in between the walls

Where Do You Go To My Lovely

Homayra Adiba, Bangladesh

By the end of 2019, we learned about SARS Cov-2 also known as ‘Coronavirus’ and none of us knew how the coming days are going to look like!

Since the first case of Covid19 in the United States, everything changed overnight! Thousands of people including my brother lost their job! Businesses were closing and only the essential businesses were left to stay open! That’s when I realized I was an essential worker. At work, there was a dark cloud in everybody’s face. Shelves were becoming more and more empty! People were fighting over toilet paper and hand sanitizers. People didn’t want to buy anything made in china! The state had shut down completely!

In America a good chunk of the population lives alone. When the state shut down, there was no place for anyone to go to. There was no cinema to watch, no parks to hunt the deer down, no museum to appreciate art, no club to enjoy the night. People couldn’t visit their grandparents. One of the only places they could go was a grocery store. I started seeing more and more people coming to the store mainly to buy essential supplies to stock up for the coming hibernation but also to just be!

‘Where do you go to my lovely’ is an attempt to capture the social tension of an already isolated community. The rigidity of not knowing, what the future awaits. The trials of making everyday endurable, this work also explores our confinement to consumerism.

Biography

Homayra Adiba is a photographer born in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She finished her graduation on photography from Pathshala South Asian Media Institute. She was also a participant at Angkor Photo Workshop 2015. In 2016, Homayra migrated to Michigan, USA and currently nesting there. The inspiration of her work is deeply rooted to the idea of ‘Home’. In her personal documentaries, Homayra tries to find lost moments, memories, nostalgia.