Architectural Digest: Shilpa Gupta's new series articulates the stillness that entered people’s lives during lockdown

Titled Lockdown Series, the images were developed as a response to AD's Instagram campaign

By Georgina Maddox, photography by Shilpa Gupta

The artist's series developed in August 2020

For a while now, artist Shilpa Gupta has been interested in our comprehension of the ideas of distance—physical, geographical or even imaginary. Her new work, titled a Lockdown Series, was created during the past year, for AD. These photographs look at the ideas of distance, mobility and confinement through a sequence of images of an empty PPE suit sitting, standing and lounging alone in the house as if it were a person captive in their own domestic setting during the pandemic. “The series developed as a response to the ‘Still Comma Life’ invitation by AD in August 2020. It had been six months since the rather sudden lockdown was announced in March and having barely stepped out, the hours and days at home seemed endless. When I received the invite, I instinctively pulled out a PPE suit that was sent by a family member at the beginning of the lockdown, when no one knew what to expect,” says Gupta. 

Gupta tells us that the photos are about the stillness that entered people’s lives in this time. “They are about a pause, an anticipation and anxiety. The figure is absent like the invisible virus that seemed rather elusive, where every day, all over the world, new assumptions were being made.”