Six months after the beginning of the pandemic, I still feel like in limbo.

The continuous alternation between hope and delusion, depression, and excitement – today even more accelerated – put me on hold.
In fact, the whole world is on hold, on a forced holiday, waiting to go back to school: a metaphor, but also the next scenario, happening just in a few days.
Our days are organized in a different way, in my case building a stricter routine. Downtime, creative ‘otium’ disappears for the fear that anxiety could fill the void.

Interrelations are different: no more occasional encounters. We discover people in the very near proximity and family, and that goes under scrutiny.

Living in a big city feels less appealing: no immediate advantages are perceived.
The small privileged world I’m lucky to be part of – that of art collecting and exhibitions – is forced to face its irrelevance, and still…

Although all international and national art fairs had been canceled, most of the big ones were able to organize very sophisticated virtual visits; many galleries have registered good sales, mainly with their long-term clients.

Auction houses have been active online and reached peak sales; cutting-edge festivals have started coming back in mixed mode: some public, some with live participation, others via Zoom.

The most serious and unpredictable aspect concerns traveling: the ever-changing safety rules differ from country to country and make it almost impossible for the public to even plan a short trip.

Encounters end up being mostly between specialists. The contexts become restricted, exchanges are diminished; the ‘reach’ obtained through a wider audience engagement is lost.
Spontaneity and improvising are lost: at the moment no more hugs, handshakes, or going impromptu to the movies or to an exhibition.
Everything needs to be carefully planned, the public is demoted, operators are in despair.

For me, work has doubled: things that closed down in real life had to be resumed online. Virtual guided tours, audio-video guides for Instagram, Zooms have to be available round the clock.

More recently, in-person presence Is required in an attempt to re-establish a sort of recovery.
So we have resumed long, uncomfortable, complex travels, with the pending risk of ending up stuck in a distant quarantine .

And yet, like for all the rest, we start again, trying to keep anxiety at bay.