Corona Rhapsody
2020
Just as Freddy Mercury asks in Bohemian Rhapsody, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”, we have often been confronted with the questions of what is actually happening around us and where the border between fantasy and reality lies, especially since the outbreak of the global Covid-19 pandemic. For us, the situation felt like a surreal dream in which we had to reorientate ourselves every few days.
We combine different aspects and scenarios happening during Covid-19 in Germany and show the tensions between public life, the infrastructural apparatus behind it and the people who move in this space.
We have chosen a theatrical pictorial aesthetic to play with our ideas of the pandemic and the crisis, our surreal feelings and also the self-isolation of institutions.
Our aim is not to bring out the individuality of the people photographed but rather to show them like film characters or avatars in video games.
With Corona Rhapsody, we want to show and question how the pandemic is presented by the media and perceived in public, to what extent this coincides with subjective experiences, how it is possibly instrumentalised for political purposes and how we will remember the coronavirus crisis in the future.
Rafael Heygster (b. 1990) studied Cultural Anthropology and Political Sciences in Hamburg and photojournalism & documentary photography in Hanover and Aarhus. In his work, he focuses on the relationship between individuals and their social, cultural and ecological environments. His works have been awarded and exhibited internationally.
Helena Manhartsberger studied International Development in Vienna and photojournalism and documentary photography in Hanover and Aarhus. Her thematic focus is on the interface between politics, society and gender issues. She has worked in Sudan and Indonesia, among other countries.
