If this is the end of the world… I’d better hide here for tonight.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Jan 23

Photographed entirely during quarantine in March and April 2020, Alexandra Riba creates a deeply personal photographic essay about being alone, life itself and magical moments.

Photography & Text  Alexandra Riba

“My house is about a hundred and seventeen (117) steps away from the sea. Nobody has ever prevented me from reaching there or even walking by.”

People pretty often say “I want to stay alone” or “leave me alone”. The moment I caught myself saying it, I sat on a rock and touched a small wave with my hand. I felt like a child who can see the sky reflected in the sea. The clouds were running fast and I wasn’t able to understand what day and time was. Within a few minutes my mind started wandering. I was looking seagulls flying differently than before and I had so many questions about the world that I knew, the ordinary one, the sometimes boring one.

After a while, it started to change, even the sea did. I heard twenty different sounds literally in a moment. It felt so weird and unbearable. The world has totally turned into something else, something that it wasn’t that familiar. People suddenly stopped walking around and talking to each other. They could only stare at the changeover.

I ran fast and fell into the sea with my entire strength

Waves

I was with them, with my beloved ones, we were laughing

I got a small sunburn

I saw you flashing before my eyes

I noticed the east and the west

A star fell I made a wish without letting anyone know

People die, although when I was little girl I used to believe the contrary.

If this is the end of the world..I’d better hide here for tonight.

*All the pictures were taken during quarantine period (March and April, 2020) because of COVID-19.

About Alexandra

Alexandra Riba (b.1997) is a photographer born and based in Thessaloniki, Greece. She is a student in the “School of Film Studies in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki”. She studied contemporary photography in “Stereosis school of photography”. She has exhibited her photographs in important art spaces such as Teloglion Fine Arts Foundation and The Benaki Museum. Her work has been published in many online platforms and magazines.

To see more of her work, follow her on Instagram.

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If this is the end of the world… I’d better hide here for tonight.

Photographed entirely during quarantine in March and April 2020, Alexandra Riba creates a deeply personal photographic essay about being alone, life itself and magical moments.

“My house is about a hundred and seventeen (117) steps away from the sea. Nobody has ever prevented me from reaching there or even walking by.”

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