British artist Gareth Fuller, passionate about topographical drawings, analyzes the phenomenology of a place. His research often begins with a comprehensive walk. This is a routine the artist is used to, but things changed when he had to self-quarantine for 14 days.
Based in Beijing, Fuller returned to the Chinese capital from Kuala Lumpur on the evening of March 3 to discover he would remain compulsory for two weeks, under new rules set to slow the spread of coronavirus.
"It was natural for me to document my experience," he said in a telephone interview, now out of quarantine. "I decided to design all four walls where I closed and see where they would lead me creatively."
For each day, Fuller described the thoughts and experiences he spent inside a 590-square-foot apartment. The result is a series of 14 drawings entitled "Quarantine Maps".
Fuller spent the mornings observing what was around: furniture, television and radio news, out-of-window movements and long conversations with his wife, who was also quarantined. He spent the afternoons and evenings drawing.
On the 8th day the artist is poisoned by food. The first sketched maps center on Fuller's apartment. He describes the sofa he spends most of his days reading and listening to on the radio, as well as the projector, which he avoids if he falls into the trap of watching movies for hours.
He sketched the table and all the preventive equipment he collected, before isolation.
Because the house seems cramped, he tries to spend most of his time on the terrace.
Fuller then describes the contaminated apartment, with features such as a stripped-down "shoe" and swimming goggles to protect the eyes from virus spots.
On Day 9, Fuller finds himself thinking beyond the parameters of what he could see. With the outbreak of the pandemic that same day, he said: "The feelings I had during quarantine became more difficult to communicate and I could not think only of my own experience."
Some of his latest pieces envision life in imaginary environments: a deserted island surrounded by "a disinfected sea". Other sketches sketched out the idea of fatalism, because the virus had now infected celebrities and would, in a way, reach the artist himself.
Day 10 is a fictional depiction of a village gathering to fight the virus.
"When you are going through this experience, you are trying to understand what is happening and looking for knowledge. The first day was telling us, 'Look at this ironic situation you are in.' By the end, I had absorbed all the information about the virus. "- he said.
Fuller is now out of quarantine, but, like many people around the world, his movements are limited by the need for social distance. He plans to continue sketching the story of this pandemic.
