Titled “Social Distance,” the exhibition by architect and photographer Ricardo Meireles will open to the public this Saturday. The exhibition aims to explore different notions of time, interaction between people, and between people and urban spaces in a pre-pandemic world.
The exhibition will be held at the gallery house of the “Hold on to Hope” project at the former leprosery of Ka Ho, now refurbished and under the management of the Association of Rehabilitation of Drug Abusers of Macau (ARTM).
Twelve monochrome photographs and one video will be displayed. All works were taken before the Covid-19 pandemic which reshaped the way people interact and move in the urbanscape around the world.
According to the artist, the exhibition is based on the concept of social distance, prompting a reflection on how we relate to each other.
The exhibition will include photographic works captured not only in Macau but also across several Asian cities, including Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Taipei.
By depicting different Asian cityscapes and the organic trails that human motion create throughout densely populated environments, “Social Distance” attempts to evoke the lost collective dynamics of city life in the pre-pandemic era and contrast it with the current day.
The opposing concepts of moving versus waiting, and of crowded places versus isolation are also portrayed.
As the artist explained, this is an exhibition that asks the audience to examine the details in addition to the “bigger picture.”
If spectators look carefully, they can discover traces of an old world, in which mouths, lips, noses, and faces – which ultimately represent the human identity – are presented uncovered and not obscured by facemasks.
In this sense, the exhibition is also appealing to spectators to conduct a personal reflection on their current day-to-day existence.
The exhibition will open to the public at 3 p.m. on February 12 and will be on display until March 2.
