TITLE: Covid-Empty Forbidden City

From 2020 to 2023, China closed its borders for tourism. But also domestic travel was at times very restricted and there were weeks when non-essential (domestic) travel was not allowed. During those pandemic years, we were living in Beijing, a city with few tourists.
We often went to the otherwise busy places, like The Great Wall or The Forbidden City, and we tasted the heavy yet amazing silence we only recognize from the movie from Bertolucci. Beijing is now starting to see visitors again, and I feel privileged I could see those places in an almost vulnerable emptiness.

AUTHOR: Vicky Ackx (Norway)

When I grew up in Belgium, I played with words to describe the world around me. Through the years and decades, other countries became a part of me, and so did their languages.
Then we moved to Japan, China and on to Norway.

Suddenly, I lost my ability to communicate.
I became mute, as I speak only a basic level. I became deaf, as the words that come to me do not make sense. I became illiterate, as I can not read. I became the one who does not understand what it all means and how it all connects.

So life put a camera in my hands.

Light became a new line of communication. Light and lines.
Small minimalistic moments but also the big dense city of Tokyo.
Thoughts and things.
A preference for the mystic of monochromes.
Trying to find my voice - still thrown between moods.