Abstract
Photoessays bridge the borders between the text and the image, much as light and shadow combined transform a flat picture into a three-dimensional object. In this photo essay I trace the invisible borders tracked in daily sanctioned walks. This forms a truncated ethnographic journey into the suburban environment during a global pandemic, one hour a day. Belonging, home, care and nation in Aotearoa New Zealand are compressed in both space and time; less than a year; less than two square kilometres, a single suburb, one neighbourhood straddling three ‘zones’. Teddy bears stuffed in windows, painted stones laid in forests, and messages to essential workers reveal values and hoped for outcomes embodied in concrete, plastered cladding and trees. The environment becomes an artistic landscape, a canvas to express wishes, hopes and dreams of who we are and hope to be, during times when borders and borderlands, both bodily and institutional, are unmade and remade.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
