I find it difficult to write about confinement without talking at length about the chaotic week that preceded it, but I’m going to try. There was a surreal two day period immediately before when it felt like the entire world was turned on its head and things were changing by the hour. Confinement, on the other hand, lasted for 55 days in France. The hours felt excruciatingly long, while the weeks felt strangely short. Things slowed down and I turned over memories of that last scrap of normalcy over and over again.

The world outside changed dramatically over the course of a few days. On Thursday, Macron announced that schools were closing. On Saturday night, Phillippe, the prime minister, shut down all nonessential businesses. And by Monday night, a country-wide confinement was put into place. Starting from Tuesday at noon, we could only leave the house for certain reasons deemed “essential” by the state: grocery shopping, dog walking, medical visits, taking care of ailing relatives, etc. Anytime we left the house, we needed to fill out and carry a form, at risk of incurring high fines. The rules became stricter as confinement went on. Runners could only go outside before 10am and after 7pm. We were only allowed to leave for an hour at a time and in a maximum 1 kilometer radius.

I live in a neighborhood that is usually bustling and there’s a park behind my house that is constantly filled with families picnicking and children playing. The silence that settled and seeped into the brick was deeply eerie and unfamiliar. I bought my camera with me on short walks to the post office and the grocery store to document and process the strange emptiness. Here are some images from the 20éme between March and May during confinement.