OOF. Twenty-twenty. You bastard.
You have left me stunned, and in a state of shock — suffering from PTSD. But you’re nearly over, and excuse me but I have to say, I won’t be sad to see you go.
I survived by keeping busy. I threw myself into my work at The Boston Globe, as well as my personal projects, in a way I have never done before. It saved me.
In a strange way, I am grateful.
What follows is a loose timeline of the creative journey I took on the way to surviving 2020.
April
Hyphen virtual gallery exhibit
I’m not the only one. Lots of us had plans. We had projects and opportunities. Or at least ideas that we hoped to turn into opportunities, eventually. But 2020 put much of life on hold. The big pause happened.
I nearly had my own gallery show. A local Boston gallery that focuses on highlighting local artists was interested in my Cuba photography project. I was ecstatic. My own show! And then Covid-19 happened, and the future of the show was thrown into uncertainty, understandably — frustratingly.
But since I still had momentum and excitement for this project, I decided not to give up on it. So, while we were stuck in limbo, I decided to make the best of it.
The result was a virtual exhibition for “Hyphen,” and a self-published book, magazine and prints of the work available for purchase.
Discarded Matter
These photos started out as a bunch of Instagram posts I made after noticing all the discarded masks and gloves littered in my neighborhood shortly after the start of the pandemic. This happened to coincide with a special environment themed Ideas section of The Boston Globe. I pitched these photos with a short paragraph to the editor and et voila, a photo essay was born.
May-July
August
The Lake Portraits
Embraced by it, dwarfed by it, mesmerized by it — these portraits are as much about the natural world as it is the people who inhabit it. Our time on earth is but a brief, frenzy-filled blip in time when compared to the quiet, long-standing presence of these woods. These photographs are part of a body of work that I called “The Lake Portraits.”
September
Returning to a place I’d never been
“I was born in the United States to parents who were both born in Cuba, and I’ve spent my life balancing on the hyphen between Cuban and American. Early on, out of a child’s instinct to survive, I learned to fit in at school by assimilating. So much so that I felt like I turned my back on my family history and heritage. Until a few years ago, when I decided that it was time to explore my Cuban-ness by visiting the island.”
From the photo essay based on my virtual exhibition for “Hyphen — The space between worlds” that was featured in The Boston Globe.
October
ritual/routine
My world has been made smaller, my life more intimate. The pandemic has brought my attention to the mundaneness, the everyday-ness of life.
I mark the passing of time by my daily routines.
I find solace in the ceremony of my ritualistic habits.
And I am made grateful for ALL of it.
It’s about maintaining some sense of normalcy during extreme times.
November
See Me (I was there)
There’s an identity that was forced onto me, and the one that my culture never wanted me to be. Somewhere in the middle, I was there. See me.
I am there—somewhere between the expectations of the toxic macho culture I was born into and the joyful freedom of my authentic nature. See me?
A sensitive young boy, I was called a faggot at school and a maricón at home. Buried under so much guilt and shame, I was there. See me.
Every day I still struggle between who I am expected to be and who I am meant to be.
I was there. I am still there. See me.
Speak Up: a Juried Exhibition by Arts Administration Association New England—Nov 6-Nov 29, 2020
December
Goodbye 2020
Our anniversary. My birthday. A wintry, cold and cozy Cape Cod getaway with my loves. Cooking, making photos, walking on the beach and sitting around a fire. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to bid adieu to this year.
When I look at these “P-Town Portraits" that I made of Rodney and myself, I feel so incredibly fortunate. We did it. We survived 2020.
In these photographs I’m already looking ahead to 2021. They are the beginnings of a project idea that will kick off a year that I hope will be creatively fruitful.
Happy new year.
All images © 2000-2021 Omar Vega. All rights reserved.