Brazilian visual artist Sandra Gonçalves has created a powerful photography series titled 'Pandemic and Chaos' that examines human isolation and the fragility of the human body during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally from Rio de Janeiro and now based in Porto Alegre since 2005, Gonçalves serves as a tenured professor and researcher in photography at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.
Gonçalves' artistic practice focuses on life's multiple social, cultural, and economic aspects, as well as the survival of the planet and its various species. Questions related to finitude are recurring themes throughout her work. Her artistic journey began in 2000 when she held her first solo exhibition at the Palácio do Catete, featuring photodocumentary work on charcoal production sites in urban Rio de Janeiro.
The 'Pandemic and Chaos' series specifically addresses the theme of human isolation caused by bodily fragility and the resulting loss of mobility. Gonçalves observes that such isolation is particularly visible in the aged and fragile bodies of elderly people. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, this isolation and confinement became present throughout the entire social body, making everyone hostage to a virus that paralyzed and confined millions and billions of people to their living spaces.
In her artistic interpretation, the windows of homes became people's access to the world – a world viewed through filters of pain. These filters, as presented in her images, are created using radiographic images of bodies displayed in reverse over landscapes, revealing the fragile matter from which humans are made. Through this technique, Gonçalves demonstrates how COVID-19 transformed people into passive bodies, terrified by an invisible evil and bound to the frame of a window.
The artist's work captures how specters of pain and death lurked in every movement within that window frame. According to Gonçalves, escape from fear and chaos became impossible during the pandemic – even in dreams and imaginary travels, the specter of fear and death became a constant presence. Her photography series serves as a haunting documentation of humanity's collective experience during one of the most challenging periods in recent history.
