The photographs in this exhibition were selected for the ways in which they evoke the unprecedented realities and profound emotions experienced by many during the past seventeen months. Taken between 1963 and 2015, the images bear witness to a finite time and place, yet how we understand them is contingent upon memory, interpretation, and lived experience. The photographers— Kristin Capp, Larry Fink, Ken Heyman, Walter Iooss, Joel Meyerowitz, and Lou Stoumen—knew nothing of the Covid-19 pandemic, the near global quarantine, nor the social justice movements that would rise with renewed urgency.

Viewers are asked to explore the act of interpretation by approaching the photographs in the present, acknowledging the emotions, events, and experiences born during 2020 and 2021. No two experiences have been the same; as a result, viewers may find meaning in the images themselves or in the tensions created between them.