Ximena Echague: Different Ways to Struggle
I am a street photographers at home, without people in the streets, trying to portray reality in isolation. The new plague has confined all of us indoors, allowing only for introspection, imagination and symbolism to capture the new fuzzy reality, the invisible risk, the permanent fear.
“I have too much time to think and wonder. Anxiety ebbs and flows, the past seems blurred, the present doesn't make sense, the future is uncertain. And yet I try to fight, to overcome the paralysis, to reinvent myself.”
“I start to seek people at a distance, from windows and terraces, desperately seeking humanity and life in the midst of an empty landscape, like a hunter in search of prey. Any contact, even at a distance, makes me feel better, less isolated, keeps me sane.
Sometimes I seek protection in reassuring elements, like water, cleaning my body and soul. Water as a symbol of purity. In the same way as during the old plague people turned to praying for solace and protection, now I turn to water to feel pure, virginal, untouched by the sad reality.
We all have different ways to struggle, to keep our mind at ease, to overcome anxiety and fear, to continue living and, hopefully, creating.
Ximena Echague is a street photographer who splits her time between Brussels and NYC. Her photography has been exhibited around the world in 18 countries, in Europe (France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Russia), America (New York, San Francisco, Miami, Argentina, Colombia) and Asia (China, Malaysia, UAE, Bangladesh, Australia); including 4 Individual Exhibitions and 44 Group Exhibitions. Follow her on Instagram.