Ali Motamedi
When the City Went to Sleep
It was winter of 2020 when I moved into a new apartment in Manhattan. One month later, news from overseas brought an unknown virus: COVID-19 was spreading everywhere. Soon the stores, restaurants, and museums were closed. The shadows of fear and loneliness were everywhere. The city that never sleeps was finally asleep.
Weeks passed and I was trapped in a tiny studio apartment in Manhattan. I tracked the number of dead in the news, and I heard that some stores were being looted and some types of food were not available anymore. New York looked like a different city to me. After a few weeks of living in lockdown, an inner force asked me to go out, a curiosity mixed with anxiety. I had more free time to walk in the evening and at night, so I started walking in the streets I used to know for many years. From Grand Central Terminal to park benches in my neighborhood, from a local coffee shop to Central Park and streets nearby, I roamed around and tried to get to know the place where I was living.
I started the project in March 2020 and continued it until the end of the year.
