Growing up before screens, I accidentally learned something about boredom, how to be alone. Consequently, I approached the lockdown by taking up and practicing a new skill: drawing. In the face of these destructive times, the upheaval of normalcy and surrounded by existential anxiety, I chose to become absorbed in something so big that it’s impossible to master in a few weeks or months. I tried to replace one form of the impossible with another, one in which I have more agency. What is more difficult is to be lonely. The days bleed into one another, the afternoons echo. In the end, I think I would rather risk my life than to be isolated. I remember and can still feel the fear of touching or kissing during the peak of the HIV-crisis in the mid/late 90’s. Let alone the fear of sex. But I still did it all. There is no substitute for touch. As each day draws to a close, is physical contact negotiable?
COMMISSIONED BY Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, New York
WITH, DIRECTOR, DOP, EDITOR Pontus Lidberg
COLOURIST Nicolas Perret
MUSIC Angelo Lomelo & Stefan Levin
