-17 March 2020-
The government orders the containment of the French as the only response to the Covid-19 epidemic.
#Stayhome
The city empties of passers-by, onlookers, tourists, but not nomads.
Not of those for whom the city arteries are their home.
“The mother of lost children who squabble between her vices and her virtues” (K. Arkana), I named the street.
Everyone at home, stay at home.
For those forgotten, this sounds like one more rejection: stay on the street!
In the homeless population, the epidemic is not necessarily taken seriously, intox, lies, suspicion, are going well.
The testimony of this period in the form of portraits of these street dwellers is one way of emphasizing this question of increased isolation.
Already isolated in normal times, they see themselves wandering in this deserted urban universe.
The symbolism of the protective mask contributes on the one hand to their dignity by a certain anonymity and on the other hand to reinforce the absurd sense of the situation of these forgotten.
I present to you the masked of the Republic.
Cristof Echard
