"Like the epidemic, Diogenes syndrome spread throughout the house: abandonment, neglect, disorder, loneliness, and madness swept through every corner at the same speed as the virus…

Under the pretext of taking interior photos for the contest—as an asymptomatic catalyst—intending that the phenomenon could be observed from the outside, the lens became a silent witness, just as the block of an asymptomatic population spreads the damage to the rest of the pandemic inhabitants.(...)"

Hugo Martínez Rapari

THE PANDEMIC FILES: INVENTORY series

Digital mobile photography

2021

"The photographic series Inventory ─like a physical accounting count─ records in detail the objects present in a home after several days of forced solitary confinement: the furniture and appliances in their current state of disrepair, the accumulation of trash and household waste.

The inventoried objects are of no use thanks to unexpected and unprecedented behavior. 
Thus, their functionality is compromised, as is their residual economic value. So, are they useless things? (...)"

Hugo Martínez Rapari

THE PANDEMIC FILES: INVENTORY series

Digital mobile photography

2021 

"A new virus had emerged, taken over the house—without exterior windows—and was transmitted through the air, invisible and even undetectable.

As the days passed, behavioral disturbances, personal neglect, self-imposed isolation at home, and the accumulation of large amounts of garbage and household waste became the obvious viral symptoms. (...)"

Hugo Martínez Rapari

THE PANDEMIC FILES: INVENTORY series

Digital mobile photography

2021

"The images seek to convey a gesture of rebellion against society and the pre-established, while exploring notions of transience and finitude, denouncing—with a disturbing nostalgia—the need for survival as a new order emerges in the accumulation of everyday objects that—like an artistic body of work—reflects the tension between the inhabitant's own nature and culture. (...)"

Hugo Martínez Rapari

THE PANDEMIC FILES: INVENTORY series

Digital mobile photography

2021

"Accumulating is not creating, and without creation, there is no art. Therefore, this maniacal, emerging behavior seems to focus its value on quantity, where the empty space and lack of creativity lead to the dilemma of considering it an illness—due to the state of the objects presented—or a work of art—because they are his own photographs.(...)

Hugo Martínez Rapari

THE PANDEMIC FILES: INVENTORY series

Digital mobile photography

2021

"Forsaking the usual methodologies and techniques of photography, the series does not attempt to sell objects or create pleasant circumstances; instead, it strives to bear witness to, question, and reflect on the social nature of human beings—paradoxically absent in the interior shots as well as in the forbidden streets. (...)"

Hugo Martínez Rapari

THE PANDEMIC FILES: INVENTORY series

Digital mobile photography

2021

"Psychotic depression and personality disorders would surely arrive soon, but how could they be counteracted if loneliness Is it absolute?

Imminently close to extreme poverty and neglect of self-care, housecleaning became impossible. Without drinking water, in silence, and with financial difficulties, I wonder if this decadent behavior... is it an illness or a lifestyle? (...)"

Hugo Martínez Rapari

THE PANDEMIC FILES: INVENTORY series

Digital mobile photography

2021

"In Inventory, these objects—sadly tinged with existential emptiness—were neither ordered nor located beyond their current, spontaneous arrangement at the time of the photograph. 

The moment became conscious when the quasi-documentary intention emerged. The bucolic atmosphere was nothing more than a climatic consequence of the moment of shooting. 

Here, the aim was not to photograph beauty, harmony, and color with a demand for compositional merit, but rather an intimate, chaotic, unpleasant, unbearable, and minimal reality. (...)"

Hugo Martínez Rapari

THE PANDEMIC FILES: INVENTORY series

Digital mobile photography

2021

"In a synchronous and parallel line of thought, both the photographers and the people with Diogenes share similar accumulation routines: the former—in an excessive manner—generating images of fleeting moments; the latter, collecting without logic and (dis)organizing their own space. To that end—as in this photographic series—the inventoried objects challenge the pathological relationship with accumulation and filth, whether due to the stubbornness of preserving trash—digital or real—as an illogical treasure derived from its systematic generation, or to seeing the fruits of functional labor inherent in a life project.

Will it then be possible to return to normal?"

Hugo Martínez Rapari

THE PANDEMIC FILES: INVENTORY series

Digital mobile photography 

2021