A  visual poem for New York

While living in New York during 2015-16, I started a project which consisted in photographing words and phrases that caught my attention on the streets. Either because of their strength or poetic potential, I captured bits and pieces of signs, posters, shop windows, and whatnot, with the intention of later constructing a poem with them. For four years, they sat untouched in my Lightroom catalog, waiting for the right moment.
In 2020, while I was in Poland, the world was hit by Covid-19, and like everyone with Internet access, I could see a tragedy unfold across the globe. Suddenly New York, this notoriously tough and buoyant city, had become the pandemic's epicenter. I couldn't help but think of my friends over there, the people suffering, the homeless, the closed businesses, the sick, and the dying. It stirred me to the point where I knew the time had come to make something of those images. And this is what arose (scroll down to read):