LUCIA HERRERO

Luis Maria is a priest in San Gabriel Archangel’s church, Madrid, Spain.

He is alone in the church these days because people are not allowed to go to church. He is taking care of his people by takingcalls, listening and giving advice. The day of the picture was Sacred Friday. That’s a big day for Christianity and the churchwas empty. He is also responsible for visiting the patients from a psychiatric hospital. He is still going there but he can’tapproach or talk to the patients. He just walks around the place so they perceive that they matter and that gives them the feeling of a certain normality. He is very disappointed with the governments. He hopes that this leads us to discover theessentials in life and makes us be more human.

Adrián is an actor and theatre director living in Barcelona, Spain. Public events have been cancelled and so have his theatrecompany´s performances for the next 6 months. The future of artists like him is in danger. These days of confinement he dresses as Dragon Ball and Spiderman for the children in the neighborhood when he goes out to the balcony to entertain them. Balcony life is now more active than ever in Barcelona.

He lives with his mother and sister. His mom, Laura, is an essential worker. She takes the metro every day to go to work. Shemakes medicines for a pharmaceutical company. And his sister, Marta, is a school helper who is now unemployed becauseof quarantining and school closure. Next year, she wants to study to become a nurse.

Pablo is a first line doctor in a hospital in Madrid, Spain.

At the beginning of the crisis, it was even more horrible. Hospitals were not prepared. Seven hundred people per day weredying at the hospitals in Spain because of covid19.

Hospitals didn´t have good equipment and protocols. There were overloads.

The window in the photo is the one from where the doctors wave to the neighborhood people who clap for them and theother emergency workers every day at 8 pm. This is done all over Spain.

His wife is also a doctor. They have a 1 year old son. The babysitter, a 55 year old woman, decided to continue working withthem assuming the risk because she considers it a social responsibility to be able to allow two doctors to work and not onlyone.

Ruth lives with her husband Edu and their two children in 3 room flat in a residential area on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain. Ruth works in the pharmaceutical industry. At this time both can telework. “Every day we exercise at home, much more thanusual, I am getting stronger.”

Seeing so many paralyzed countries creates moments of great anguish and concern about the world economy. It changesthe way of seeing life, but in the end, we adapt. It is our characteristic as humans.

I am glad to see how nature has been quickly reborn when we have stopped bothering it.

Eric lives in an apartment in Harlem, New York. He is the organist and choir director at the historic Saint Phillip’sEpiscopal Church in New York City. All services were  suspended until mid-May. He lives with his partner. He loves to be athome, surrounded by his music and books.

He is not worried, "We New Yorkers passed through a terrorist attack, so… this is just one more thing. New Yorkers movequickly. In a year, this period will be behind us and business will be fast and furious like it has always been here”.

Tanya and Terry posing with their 3 children in front of their house.

Leaning on the facade is the skin of the polar bear that they hunted a few days ago. They are Inuits living in Igloolik, a smallcommunity in the Artic, Canada. Nunavut is the only jurisdiction in Canada with no confirmed cases of covid19 yet. But theirgovernments have taken precautionary measures very seriously.

Both are now working from home and finally spending good quality time together.

Terry has also the time to hunt, something that he adores. He hunted a polar bear during his 9 days expedition with his10 dogs. When he came back, they skinned and cleaned the bear skin, a process that took two days. Now the skin is dryingoutside the house. They are proud.

The meat was distributed among the community members. The skin will be used as an isolation surface to put the tent onwhen they go camping and hunting in the Artic.

The nearest hospital is hundreds of Kms away and there are no respirators.  Since a covid19 breakout would be a disaster in the region, they take so much responsibility and practice social isolation voluntarily.

Tanji is a video camera operator living in Turkey. He is a third-generation refugee. No passport, no nation. His grandparentsbecame refugees in Syria from Palestine in 1948. He was born in Syria as a refugee 28 years ago. He managed to go to Iran tostudy art. His grandmother is still in Syria. His mother and sister escaped from war in Syria by crossing the Mediterranean Sea ina little boat.

Now they are refugees in Germany. His father is stuck in Lebanon. It’s been 6 years ago that he hasn´t seen any of them. Forhim, covid19 is not his biggest problem. It has already been 6 years that he is communicating with his family only throughvideo conferencing, something we all have been doing just for 2 months. He dreams to get his family together.

Sonia is 32 years old. She works in a supermarket in Salamanca, Spain. She said she lived in "a horror movie" during thefirst few days of the pandemic. There was a rush on the supermarket by people running scared, emptying shelves andpanicking.

Her grandmother died of coronavirus. Sonia couldn´t go to the hospital to help her or say goodbye or even attend the burial.There was no ceremony because of the state of emergency and the social distancing policy.

She pays tribute to her grandmother with this photo. She didn’t have a portrait of her in the provisional house where shelives so she shows the face of her grandma in the computer. There is no place to buy a flower so, instead, she used abamboo branch that she had at home.

When the lockdown ends she is going to rush to see her parents who she misses so much.

Maggie lives in Singapore with her husband, their two kids and two helpers. They live in a penthouse of an apartmentbuilding on the 35th floor.

She is a tv producer and runs a social-conscious e-comerce business. He works in the finance world. “We are safe. InSingapore, the people suffering from the pandemic are the immigrants coming from other places in Asia and providing cheap labor: they live crowded with other immigrants in small spaces. The government is taking care of them now”.

This pandemic time is good for Maggie and her family. They are spending time together and have stopped rushing around.

“Nature is happy without our interference but after this ends, humans will start doing what they do best: destroy”.

Roser is the finance coordinator at Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

In Yemen. War started in 2014. Roser has been there since August 2019 and should have left in April  2020 but she couldn´t because of the travel restrictions. Independently from the pandemic and because of the conflict in Yemen she lives in aperpetual lock down, only relating with 30 other people from the MSF team. She needs to wear the women’s traditionalclothes just to cross the street to reach the office.

Yemen is suffering the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Diseases including cholera, dengue, diphtheria and malaria arerife and only half of the hospitals are fully functional. Covid19 is now there as well.

Rose lives with her husband Stefano and their teenage son Teo in an 85 sq. meter flat in the lovely historic centre of Foligno, Umbria, Italy.

Rose and Stefano are performers. They have toured the world together.

Their shows have been cancelled for the upcoming months.

They are extremely worried for their future as they know that the measures taken for social distancing will naturally prevent them from  working.

Despite this disturbing scenario, Rose is much more concerned for her family which comes from a very poor environment atthe favelas in Brazil. Social distancing and proper hygiene are not realistic options there. People in Brazil are not taking thepandemic seriously.

“I’ve learned that it is not so bad to be at home despite I am a hyper social person who likes to be outside all the time. I havelearnt to control anguish. I am happy to see that nature is vibrating in full splendor without us. The planet needed that time. I find it difficult for the world to really change. Humans beings have a short memory”.

Mounkaila Harouna lives with his wife and children in his home in Niamey, Niger. At that very moment, they break the fast atthe end of the day during Ramadan.

He is a geographer, specialized in migrations. He researches and teaches at the university. “There is no confinement inNiger, but a state of emergency. Public places like schools and universities are closed, although places of worship reopen in mid-May. The mosques were closed, but people kept gatheringto pray every day around the mosques.

This is being difficult for the poorest people. Land borders are closed.

Surely something positive will come out of all this, but I have the feeling that there will be a permanent change in the world.”

Govind is 25 years old and lives in Himatgar Gjrat, India, in a house with other 8 members of the same family. In the photo,he appears with his cousin, grandmother, father and grandfather.

In the morning, he studies to be an administrative police officer and in the afternoons he works as a private driver for awealthy family. His family works in agriculture and now they are having a hard time since they cannot sell their products atthe market due to the lock down. Since the watermelons they are collecting this season will not be sold, they will keep themfor themselves. They also have a cow and a calf. "During this crisis we, humans, have realized that we are not gods."

Masayuki, Akane and their 5-year-old son pose in the livingroom of the the Shooting Star, a hostel they run in Fukoaka City,Japan. It is a traditional Japanese construction surrounded by nature.

They live in an attached house. The hostel is closed now.

In Japán they are living an emergency situation, not a lock down.

International travel will take time to occur. They don't know when the hostel will reopen. Right now they are still selling theEthiopian coffee that they roast themselves and also hammocks of exquisite manufacture. They value more now the timespent with other humans and they will reconsider consumerism.

Kris works as an administrator in a meat processing company in Bilbao, the Basque Country, Spain. During the first days ofcrisis and social panic the company worked harder than ever. Sales skyrocketed as if it were Christmas.

She is an essential worker. Food production and processing has not stopped functioning. Thanks to it, the rest of us can eat.

They take uniform and distancing precautions. Even so, several of her companions have become ill during this time.

Her husband, who lost his job due to the crisis, waits for her at home. He is very afraid of a contagion and demands Kris to do a total disinfection before entering the house and getting comfortable.

Karmele Llano is founder and director of IAR Indonesia, an orangutan rescue and recovery center in Kalimatán, Borneo. They reintroduce orangutans into the wild. They have environmental educational and forest protection projects. Three hundred people work there.

Since there is evidence that covid19 can pass from humans to primates, we are taking extreme precautions. In Indonesia, the most disadvantaged people find themselves in need to exploit natural resources. The tourism industry hasfallen. The companies that clear the forests will find an excuse to continue doing so.

Here many people do not have access to the health system. Still, confinement in a society like this can be more damagingthan the pandemic itself.

Scientists were warning about new diseases of zoonotic origin. Deforestation and illegal animal trafficking are the reasons. Welive disconnected from the natural world, crowded into cities. The pandemic was going to happen. it will come back if we don't change something from the base.

Arriel lives in the Pyrenees, the mountains between Spain and France, with his wife Maca. They raise sheep and makecheese that they sell in their own store. Their clients are mostly travelers and tourists who visit the mountains. Now there is no one traveling so they can't sell their products. They bought their milk from a producer in France but now they can’t because the frontiers are closed. They assume they are going to lose money during these months.

It has become evident that cities are traps when an emergency like this pandemic happens. Many people will escape to the rural life, especially now that tele work has been tested.

They think things will change forever. The pandemic will affect their capacity to relate and approach others and they worry therewill be more control over their lives.

Lauren Gibbs is a 2018 USA Olympic medalist competing as a bobsledder.

During the pandemic, she is living in San Francisco, USA, with her parents who are both tele working.

They had to do without the house assistant so she is cleaning and cooking for her parents. What a high-performanceprofessional athlete does when not being able to practice and take her body to the highest level required? She is training at home because she can’t go to sport facilities. New weights that she ordered by mail just arrived. This year the Olympicgames were delayed. She feels lucky during this global pandemic because she has a family, an education, a house andaccess to a health system. Not everybody can say this now. Poor people and poor countries will suffer the most.

Rosa and Rafael are 94 and 95 years old. They live in La Hoz de La Vieja, a small village in Teruel, Spain, with only 60inhabitants. It is a simple country house that belonged to Rosa's great- grandparents.

They have worked very hard in the fields all their lives. Now they only have chickens and a vegetable garden that they arevery proud of.

Regarding the pandemic, they are very scared and say with resignation "Let it be what God wants." They feel isolated as they can´t be helped or visited by their sons or grandchildren to avoid a potential contagion.

Winter is spent in an apartment in the city of Zaragoza. They feel very fortunate that this has caught them in their beloved town.

Fabiana and Giacomo are the creators of Circo el Grito, they live in Italy with their 6-year-old daughter, Nina. They werewith the technician and a trapeze artist from the company preparing his new creation in his tent when the pandemic arrivedto Italy.

They are in the countryside; they have space to breathe and move and every day they use their time to create the new show.His entire tour in the coming months has been canceled due to the state of emergency and the impossibility of traveling andgathering people in the same place.

They are worried like all the show workers. “Things are going to change. Live shows cannot be passed to the onlineworld. They need presence, glances, human warmth. You can’t play with masks in front of a masked audience. To whatextent can one reinvent themselves?

Artists from all over the world have suffered greatly from this global crisis. They are in great uncertainty.

Art makes life more livable. It is what makes us human immediately after having food and shelter needs covered. Duringthis crisis everyone has seen movies, read books and listened to music, all made by artists”

Samir lives in Lagos city, Nigeria. He lives in a rented room in a house with 3 other men.

He worked at the airport as a baggage handler. But since there are no more flights, he has no job. During the first 3 weeks of the lockdown he had already consumed 90% of his savings. He is extremely worried for himself and for the people inNigeria. He believes that a lock down could bring hunger to the poorest. He blames the government for not caring about itspeople.

Baba lives in Ghana. He is 25 years old. He rents a room in a building with a shared bathroom. He doesn’t have a window. He takes me to see the streets outside his home. The market is not crowded as it is normally. The lockdown is not strict there. The governments places small water deposits in the market so people can wash their hands. He just finished hisnursing studies and is just waiting for the government’s permission to be able to work in a hospital. So, he is using his time now to study and not forget anything. “People need to go out to work every day; they don’t have savings. A lockdown can represent a big danger for survival”. But he ends saying with a smile: “Economy is not important. Its life that matters”.

They are a Quiche Mayan Family. They live in Chichicastenango, El Quiché, Guatemala. They have worked in commerceand the services sector.

They are currently working on a 100% self-sustainable project on issues of food sovereignty, renewable energy andthe construction of a collection of modern and native art that has 230 pieces.

They had a restaurant for 30 years. Their main clientele was European and Asian. They had to close the restaurant due to the pandemic crisis because they suspect that the travel industry will not start to recover until at least two years from now.They do food delivery service now.

Diego believes that in Latin America they are already used to living a life of semi-confinement due to security problems andconflicts.

“People here are still not fully aware of the danger of this pandemic”. Diego lives with his mother (Carmen), father (Diego) andAnny (sister).

Marcos Guevara is his stage name. He chose the last name in honor of Che. He is a former FARC guerrilla soldier.

He went to university to study philosophy. There he became a member of the Colombian Clandestine Communist Party (PC3). In 2013, when the peace talks with the government began, he entered the ranks of the organization. He never had to shoot, his main function was to teach to read, to draw drawing, mapping and photography.

He lives in the Tierra Grata village, in the Perijá mountain range, in Cesar, Colombia. It is a place founded by 162 men and women who laid down their arms. Today they are more than 200 people.

Here he poses with an orthopedic leg of a former combatant. Marco is doing a photographic work about the wounds of the conflict.

Behind it appears the map of the land that the community has recently bought. There they will settle permanently. He proudly shows me his piece of land where he will build his house and the place where the  graphic arts office will be settled. Hi is the responsible for the image and communication. He has the illusion of mounting, among other things, a cinema.

During the pandemic, he, his wife  and other comrades dedicate themselves to distributing boxes of food to the neediest families in neighboring communities.

He shows great love for simple and in need people from Colombia.

“The profession of documentary photographer is of great importance during the post-agreement period that we are experiencing. I like to show forgotten- and-lost Colombia”.