In the early months of 2020, as one by one countries began to lock down and close their borders in response to Covid-19, the questions of quarantine and testing hovered in the air. How long would lockdown last? What would it entail? How strict would it be? Where would you spend it? Where could one get a test? Who could get a test?
Countries began to diverge in their approaches, making rules for essential workers, postponing non-emergency surgeries, and providing guidance for exercise. Videos of near silent avenues in New York, sheep flooding a street in Turkey, and mountain goats on the main drag of a Welsh town circulated. Italian mayors posted bizarre announcements quoting Dante, warning people to stay inside and stop walking their dogs for the tenth time in one day. The world seemed suspended simultaneously in a collective limbo and a state of emergency. As the first waves subsided and lockdowns softened the question of travel emerged again—who could and how? For Chinese citizens abroad, returning home would prove to be a labyrinth. Not only would they have to present a negative PCR test but also a ‘clear’ IgM test followed by quarantine upon return.
The re-entry rules that China imposed affected the London-based photographer Yuanbo Chen personally. After his girlfriend recovered from the Delta variant, they wanted to return to China to see family. This simple wish would turn out to be far more complicated than they could have ever imagined. “When we browsed the flight rules, everything seemed to be difficult,” the photographer says. “One day, we found a group called ‘Helping each other get back to China’ on social media, which was limited to 500 people. The group only allowed people who were positive on their IgM tests to join. In this group, people shared experiences about how to clean your IgM faster and encouraged each other such that you were not alone.”
An IgM test checks for antibodies, proteins that a body makes to fight off a virus, called immunoglobulins. Unlike a PCR test, done with a nasal or throat swab, IgM tests take blood samples. Where a person testing positive for Covid may take 14 days to test negative on a PCR test, IgM tests can take two to four months to clear. This extended waiting, filled with uncertainty, put Chinese citizens abroad in destabilizing situations.
“We called those who were stuck recovering in the UK ‘stranded.’ China and the Western world seem to have had completely different attitudes and responses to the pandemic,” Chen says. “The ‘stranded’ seemed to live in limbo, forced to face the conflict between these different responses.” Through shared experience, a project was born. “I began to photograph these people along with their meaningful objects, and interviewed each person to know how these rules impacted their thoughts and experiences.”
Building on the connections he had forged, Chen began asking group members to pose for portraits. Through talking about their experiences, an object that had helped them through the uncertainty was chosen. For Portrait of Han and her helmet and GoPro, Chen recalls, “When we spoke about how Covid affected our bodies, a story grabbed my attention in which the person I was photographing would climb tables and walls in her little room during quarantine as she couldn’t go outside to do her favorite activity: climbing. I was inspired by the conversation. I let Han wear her gear in the image and was fascinated with the corridor, especially the color.” This portrait would help set the parameters of the series as a whole—a conversation, a portrait, and an object.
Chen’s subjects and their corresponding objects range from the practical to the emotional. Lu gazes into the distance while her ashtray reveals a smiley face in the soot. Xiao, seated at a table and shot from a distance, is paired with her empty dishes resting on a windowsill. In the portrait of a couple, Lan and Chi, hands repeat—gracefully caressing a cheek here, outstretched in another to show a wedding ring. In an enigmatic pairing, a young woman named Leng, dressed in green and blue, hugs herself, her eyes peering over her crossed arms and out of the image. On the other side is a small, seemingly knitted sculpture, similar in color to the clothes she wears. Its form is vague, noted as ‘handmade stuff’; it feels mysterious and personal.
To pull the conversation more fully into the imagery, Chen began embroidering his subject’s words onto the portraits. He had experimented with embroidery in an earlier project on the role of traditional housewives in Chinese society and explains “I love the action of sewing. For me, embroidery means repetition, which is similar to strands that go through the ‘boring’ everyday,” he says. In this instance, the red thread references the regular act of testing one’s blood through the IgM protocols. “This process of ensuring that you are ‘clean’ is boring—it’s as if we are duplicating our yesterday. You cannot see your tomorrow because yesterday is today and today is tomorrow.”
In exhibiting the work, Chen has sought to capture the physical experience of his subjects. “I wanted to make a box or window for them which could contain their objects and their experiences inside. Every single moment and memory for them in that time is precious and we should keep it,” he says. “As for why I chose metal frames, it is reflective of the coldness of the rules—people have to obey them and they are not easy to break. They are very similar to the idea of a frame: a device that restricts the margin of the picture or in other words, restricts our behavior.”
Looking back at his work, Chen hopes it honors his subjects and their experience. “During the time of the pandemic, people at home misunderstood the Chinese people that were stranded overseas,” he says. “It was very absurd. Although they were infected, it didn’t mean they were ‘bad’ in any way. I just wanted to record these moments for those who have been harmed, to show my support. To show that I stand by them.” In documenting these stories, Chen has done just that, giving voice to the individuals caught up in an uncertain system and marking this confusing moment in time.
