This artwork, 50-metre long and made up of 50.000 photographs, draws the word Solidarity in the Catalan sign language

Barcelona, 19th November 2020 – The internationally renowned photographer Joan Fontcuberta has completed his new artwork, a massive photomosaic, to pay homage to people’s solidarity during the Covid-19 lockdowns. This is the completion of Glimpses of the Lockdown, a participatory art project organised by Fontcuberta, Òmnium Cultural and Festival Cruïlla. The work of art has used 50.000 photographs sent by people from all over the world forming the word Solidarity in the Catalan sign language. Fontcuberta and Òmnium have created an inclusive work of art that highlights the communicative grievances and social isolation suffered by deaf people in the current health crisis in which wearing surgical masks is compulsory.

Last May the digital platform Glimpses of the Lockdown was launched to invite people to send photos depicting what it meant for them to live in confinement. With these photos, Fontcuberta has designed a massive mosaic (50-metre long) formed by tiles, where different people write the word Solidaritat (Catalan for Solidarity). 

Fontcuberta chose the word Solidarity precisely to recognise the capability of citizens to self-organise, face difficulties, and be creative regardless of the pandemic. Every letter is written by professionals and citizens who have played a critical role during the pandemic: a female doctor, an elderly woman, a mother with her daughter, children, a trader, a female ambulance driver, a female shopper, a craftsman, a nurse, a teacher, and finally, a businessman and cultural activist. The latter is Jordi Cuixart, president of Òmnium Cultural, who has been in prison for 3 years in Spain for exercising his fundamental rights during the Catalan push for a referendum in 2017.

“We want to share the disinterested effort made by thousands of doctors, nurses, civil servants, teachers and families as a symbol of collective self-esteem”, explains Cuixart from Lledoners Penitentiary Center. This grandiose artwork will be installed permanently in Igualada as a mural, a Catalan town that was the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak at the beginning of the crisis in March this year.