Rafael Heygster

HONORABLE MENTION

Like Freddy Mercury asks in his song Bohemian Rhapsody „Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?“ i have often been con-fronted with the question of what is actually happening around me and where the border between fantasy and reality lies, since the outbreak of the global Corona pandemic. For me the situation feels like a surreal dream. In this photo essay I combine different aspects and scenarios happening during Covid-19 in Germany like in the song bohemian rhapsody different music genres are combined and open to interpret. I am interested in the tension between public life, the apparatus behind it and the people/subjects who move in this space. Corona Rhapsody is a contribution to the discussion on the question of what changes in our society will be caused by the pandemic. The work questions how the current situation is presented by the media and perceived by the public, to what extent this corresponds to subjective experiences, how the pandemic is possibly being instrumentalized for political purposes, and how we will remember the coronavirus crisis in the future. Note: A part of this project has been realized in collaboration with my collague Helena Manhartsberger. Working as a team allowed us to use sevaral remote flashes to document real, not-staged situations to underline the tension of surreal feelings to this new reality.

More about the photographer:
rafael-heygster.com

Project
Corona Rhapsody – is this real life?

Location
Germany

Year
2021