'Lockdown Horizons' calendar by Guillaume Squinazi

Calendar 'Lockdown Horizons' by Guillaume Squinazi, 2020. Covering the dates 23 March to 3 May 2020, each page of the calendar shows a photograph from one of six windows, bordered by a simple, stylised window frame, with text in red and black above. Colour printed on paper, with metal ring binders and a bamboo base. Gilded presentation box. Edition 3 of 5.

‘Lockdown Horizons’ is a print project by photojournalist and art photographer Guillaume Squinazi developed during the first UK Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. He created a tear-off calendar of images taken from his London home, each marked with a date stamp, to capture his pandemic experience and find a way to mark the passage of time.

The piece records the period 23 March to 3 May 2020, at the early height of the UK pandemic and is designed to resemble a traditional tear-off calendar. Pages for each day can be turned on metal rings, mounted onto a bamboo base. Across the 42 days, Squinazi photographed from six different windows, looking in different directions at his surroundings, and capturing subtle changes of light and weather. Notably almost every view is empty of people.

Writing about the project, Squinazi explains that he spent time thinking about ‘how photography could relate to this global quarantine’ and in the end ‘I chose to stay at home and capture my own captivity’. He suggests that ‘through this date-stamped work, we are confronted with repetitive, limited horizons. Like a leitmotif, every day resembles another despite the passing weeks that bring varying perspectives. Slowly the images are flipped through, trapped in this hellish calendar and this window closed from the inside.’ His project captures the sense of captivity and isolation felt by many during lockdown, but also the simple pleasure taken in observing a single changing view. It epitomises the intimate relationship that many formed with a repetitive daily experience, whether walking the block or watching the same vista.