March 15. As infection rates soared and borders quickly closed in Europe, American photojournalist Pete Kiehart fled his Paris apartment to find the comfort of his family home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. United. He felt well on arrival, but, as a precaution, he still took his temperature. The thermometer indicated 38 ° C. The next morning, after testing positive for Covid-19, Pete became the first confirmed coronavirus case in Orange County.
His partner, Polish photojournalist Kasia Strek, also based in Paris, arrived in North Carolina a little later the same day – she was in Atlanta (Georgia), where she was reporting. They wanted to get through the pandemic crisis together. Sick, Pete was instructed to place himself in quarantine. He thus found himself isolated, in a part of the family home.
Long distance relationships are difficult. Kasia and Pete know this: their profession has accustomed them to meet, and not to see each other for long periods. But this experience had something different. Worse: they were there, in the same country, in the same house, but without being able to speak to each other other than by courier.
They then decided to document their respective experiences: Pete, trapped in two rooms, and Kasia, unable to visit him despite their proximity, and seeking refuge in the nearby forest.
Pete spent three weeks in isolation with symptoms ranging from fever to cough. When he came out, they gathered their images and built the story of a paradoxical separation …
"Pete was there behind this door for an unknown length of time. He couldn't get out, and we couldn't get in. At best, we could bring her food and drink on a platter. The day I arrived, before we got the test results, we met briefly there. Because of this meeting, I too had to confine myself for two weeks. "- Kasia
"Right after I received Pete's results, I learned that a friend of a friend had just died of Covid-19. He was Pete's age. "- Kasia
"In my room, I was desperately looking for the sunlight, which was just passing over the edge of my bed. "- Pete
"Every time I came to the window to chat, my heart went crazy. Seeing Pete face this loneliness, this fear and this suffering, without being able to take him in my arms, it was so difficult … As difficult as getting words out of my mouth to try to comfort him. "- Kasia
"I was sitting in front of this window looking at the forest where I was dying to go. It was there that Kasia came to visit me. I thought having it close would make things easier, that time would pass more quickly. However, in many ways, it was unbearable to be so close, without being able to touch or speak, in complete privacy. "- Pete
“This lack of human contact was unbearable. People usually express their affection by staying close to each other. Social distancing is now a protective gesture. To adapt to this change, I started to contact the trees. Every day a different tree. I imagined that they had chosen me and that they were talking to me. Each time, I brought the ear to their trunk, so close that the bark left its mark on my face, and I hoped to hear their inner music, something that would sound like the sound of the ocean, or music of the world. But even there they remained silent. But I kept hugging them until my arms couldn't take it anymore. "- Kasia
“One day, a snake crossed my path. Was it poisonous? I did not know. I felt like I no longer knew anything. "- Kasia
“We were in the house where Pete grew up. Sometimes at nightfall I would go out to look at the lighted window to the left of the house, trying to imagine what Pete was doing. "- Kasia
"Local children sent me a card and breadsticks. On the right, the bleach basin which was used to disinfect my dishes, after each meal. "- Pete
"Kasia at the end of the corridor, one of the rare times when the door that separated us was found open. On the right, the table on which my meals were placed on me. "- Pete
"A dead wasp on the windowsill of my bedroom." I think this is the room where I spent the most time in my life, since it was my room from my 6 years until I entered university. Having nothing else to do, I changed the decoration, by picking up some posters that dated from high school, I opened books that I had not consulted in years, and I fell back on my lessons from college, but I gave up cleaning that window sill. We were there, this wasp and me. "- Pete
"We both worked, Kasia and I, to achieve this double self-portrait, she was holding the camera, while I controlled it remotely using my smartphone. "- Pete
“The roads that surround the forest served me as a border. Every day, I reached this border, before turning around, hoping that we could walk together again quickly. "- Kasia
"Gradually, my forties softened. I first joined dinner in a nearby room, ten yards from my parents and Kasia. "- Pete
“A week after her symptoms ended, we decided to end Pete's quarantine. The US public health agency, its British counterpart and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend waiting 72 hours, one or two weeks, respectively, after symptoms have ended. We did not touch each other, and we kept our distance, but we started walking together again. I felt so peaceful to see him outside, among the trees, walking and taking pictures. Some days we stayed outside for hours. "- Kasia
April 5. "Freed from my forties, I was finally able to reconnect with human contacts." – Pete
“The bedroom I slept in was adjoining Pete's. In the morning, I listened, trying to guess if he was awake, or how his cough was going. For three weeks, we lived on a wall apart. "- Kasia
