Social Distancing Portraits

Adad Hannah’s Social Distancing Portraits is a poignant visual archive that engages directly with the idea of visibility and proximity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Begun in March 2020 as lockdowns were taking effect, Social Distancing Portraits comprises more than 200 short video portraits capturing a diverse range of individuals from a distance of at least five meters using a long lens. Hannah films people he encounters on the streets of Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver, and asks each subject to hold a pose for approximately 20 to 30 seconds. Thus, such durational portraits appear almost photographic in their stillness, yet they are unmistakably moving images, producing a temporal tension that captures the eerie stillness and psychological suspension characteristic of the early pandemic period. Each video is accompanied by musical scores by Montreal-based composer Brigitte Dajczer, and also by a short interview text from the individuals filmed, reflecting on their fears, loneliness, or everyday realities during COVID. “30 years married. It’s been pretty cool actually, we’ve become better friends. Reality has actually set in; this is the time to love each other now. Covid is scary but you just have to stick together”, Hannah posts the quotes from the elderly couple he filmed for Social Distancing Portraits 77 on Instagram, who are being captured sharing an intimate kiss in front of the camera. The scene creates a subtle yet powerful juxtaposition with the project’s title: a tender act of closeness captured under the banner of “social distancing.” In doing so, it draws attention to the paradoxes of pandemic life, where physical separation was mandated but emotional intimacy remained vital to survival.

By combining tableau vivant (a static scene containing one or more actors or models, stationary and silent, suitable for recording by photography) aesthetics with participatory practice, Social Distancing Portraits extends Hannah’s ongoing interest in the intersections between stillness, performance, and spectatorship. The subject’s corporeal presence in each video also humanizes the abstract data and headlines of the pandemic by giving form to a vivid, emotional visual description. Strangers become witnesses, passers-by become participants, a shared moment of pandemic experience is reflected in distance.