Edition 38 | 2021
Taboo: Pandemic Escapism Photo + Words Stephanie Montatore
I have an important question for you: how has the crazy year that was 2020 fed your imagination? It would be safe to say that many of us have recently partaken in some well needed escapism as a result of the isolation and lockdown periods that swept over 2020. In the state of a quarantined world, we have seen some of our favourite artists retreat to their homes and minds, only to eventually resurface having used their time in solitude to create. In the world of music and film alone, we have seen artists produce incredibly imaginative works in response to devasting circumstances worldwide. Notably, Taylor Swift blessed us with not one, but two albums – Folklore and Evermore – in which saw the singer-songwriter create music in ways she never had before. Using escapist concepts, Swift constructed songs based on folklore and fictitious worlds to make sense of her own world. Meanwhile, Sam Levinson of the HBO drama series, Euphoria, secretly shot the upcoming blackand-white romance, Malcolm & Marie, with Zendaya under COVID-19 safety protocols in lockdown. Through this creation, Levinson would go on to showcase the state of the human condition in a world of solitude. So, for many, it would seem the pandemic’s demands to have us lockdown alone, with our own thoughts, has led people to either find or extend their creative output to make sense of the chaotic world of 2020. Personally, I found the state of life on Earth overwhelming and, as a result, I escaped to my imagination to make sense of a new reality. Feeling alone encouraged me to imagine in new ways. I noticed myself seeing and caring for the people around me through new means that I perhaps had not pursued before. For example, I often wondered how the year had looked through the eyes of strangers I passed
walking down the streets or shopping in grocery stores. Thanks to this new fly-on-the-wall angle I discovered, I found myself writing poetry from the perspective of characters I never had before, like a misunderstood villain exiled from their small town or a teacher’s pet consumed by the rumour mill. It was these perspectives that drew my mind away from
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