KIOSK 

During the height of the pandemic, being obsessed with photography, I was looking for a legal way to be outside my home. I was offered a job as a weekend seller at a newspaper kiosk on the suburban train platform. The train station, it’s surroundings and it’s inhabitants had seemed both appealing and frightening since my childhood. Deciding to challenge myself, I agreed.

For three months, every weekend from eight in the morning until seven in the evening, I sold newspapers, books, magazines, chips, sunflower seeds and soda. During working hours, my world was limited to the view from a small window through which transactions took place. The safe distance of one and a half meters was easily reduced to one third by my visitors and the stream of information about the rising number of infections only fueled my paranoia.

Placing a hidden camera in front of the window, I began to capture the endless flow of customers. Elderly people, summer residents, suburban students, young mothers—all of them were in a hurry. During the breaks between train arrivals, I took portraits of people who no longer needed to go anywhere.

At the end of summer, I quit. The kiosk continued to operate for another year before closing down. I returned there again and again, but this time as a passenger.

2020-2022