Lockdown Project
During the Covid-19 lockdown, Seba Kurtis continued his Artist in Residence at Ucen Manchester in his house. Using the situation as an opportunity to create new work from his vast archive of negatives using the new data of the pandemic available to the public, combined with samples of light correction filters to produce images which appear as though seen through a surreal kaleidoscope - this itself a metaphor of each individual’s unique experiences of the lockdown. Kurtis has been working in areas of conflict over the last 12 years and is no stranger to the harsh realities in life that illegal immigration brings. In this isolation he has reflected on and made use of his own experiences by re-visiting past projects that didn’t make the final edit. He is now showing them in a new light amended by a form of intervention or collage used directly on his films to represent data on Covid-19. The information provided regarding the lockdown develops continuously - ‘Map of the outbreak in Arizona’, ‘Confirmed cases in France’, ‘Care Home deaths are still rising in the UK’. Kurtis represents the governmental imposed Lockdown guidance such as social distancing, combining this data with his empty landscapes and cities to make visible the rapid spread of coronavirus. –
A. Mosley
