Mathery Builds Fashionable Photoshoots of Covid-19 Staples

Since Covid-19 has hit Europe the words stockpiling, social distancing and hand washing have become large parts of everyday life.

Cleaning products are the height of fashion and everyone song imaginable is being used to wash hands along to. So 1stAveMachine directors Mathery launched a series of tongue in cheek works from their New York studio, inspired by their Italian family living in the heart of the outbreak. Here's what they said about it:

We received a lot of information (some real and some false) from our friends and family in Italy about the Coronavirus and how important Instagram is to share this kind of awareness to the rest of the world, but in a visual way - which is Instagram language. Instagram stories, filters, posts… now that people are spending so much time at home in quarantine, Instagram is more popular than ever, it is the place to escape and keep in touch with other people. We are appreciating its impact more now than before.

The whole inspiration came from friends and families in Italy. They have lived, and are still living, in one of the hardest periods of their lives. People we know got sick, they got better, others aren’t yet. We know they can’t go out anymore, can’t visit families and friends, cannot walk their dog or go out for a run (in some places you can but always keeping a few meters distance from others) they have to stay in line one hour outside supermarkets that let groups of 10 people enter at the time. Jobs got cancelled and people can’t work or have any job. Doctors and nurses, friends of ours are emotionally overwhelmed and risking their lives. Hospitals are overcrowded, and believe us, the health-care system in Italy is fantastic.

But let’s stay positive, people are trying to remain human and they gather online a lot, speak, sing and have parties on balconies, there is a lot of solidarity and this is inspiring.

Of course we have done this project meticulously from our home!

We travel a lot for work, but we are also trained to work from home for long periods of time and we have been doing so for years now.

We make a big mess, then clean up and start a new day tomorrow where everything repeats, it’s definitely inspiring our creativity because staying home is exactly what we should do now and what we want to talk about in the photos. So… apart from a quick stop to the dollar shop next door on day zero, we didn’t go out and just shot everything from home, using seamless paper for backgrounds from previous works and personal objects as props.