Inés Mencos BA (Hons) Design for Art Direction As I write this, Spain is the leading country for deaths caused by coronavirus (according to their deaths per million inhabitants), adding up a staggering 192.282 confirmed cases and 20.162 confirmed deaths. Taking into account that those deaths are only confirmed if the Co-Vid test is realized, we assume that the official number is much lower than actual truth. Spain is in a state of alarm with forced quarantine, as most countries around the world. However, on the news the only thing we see is the idealization of quarantine; Pedro Sanchez (the president) comes on TV announcing the state of alarm in a monologue that lasted about an hour and a half saying to stay home and watch Netflix. All we see are images of people coming out to their balconies at 8pm to clap to the doctors and sing ‘Resitiré’ (I will resist), which has become the official confinement anthem. Influencers changing their night time skin routine and teaching — through a never-ending series of directs on Instagram — how to exercise at home or to cook the perfect gluten-free, lactose-intolerant, vegan cookies. No images of the pain; no images of the temporary morgues that have had to be built across the country because medical centers had commenced to be paralyzed by the accumulation of corpses. No mourning for the dead. No images of families unable to attend the burials of their loved ones. Nothing about sanitary workers having to choose between the lives of an elder with two kids and grandkids, or a healthier 50 year old. I have not yet seen anyone come out to say that they are 7 living in an 80 square meter apartment without a fridge or the ability to pay for food. I am sure it’s because with this amazing, all-encompassing government, those things are not happening. Because what we are seeing in Spain is everyone quarantining in their palace, swimming in their interior pool, watching French cinema and reading Kafka. As Queen Marie Antoinette once said, if the peasants have no bread “Let them eat cake!”. The viral image of a sign hanging from a balcony stating "Romanticizing quarantine is a class privilege” has made me think about social classes, because the not only exist, but matter. It is not the same to quarantine in a huge house with a perfectly mowed lawn and a pool than in a shared tiny official protection apartment where the windows are so small that hardly any light enters through them. There are those who pass it on the street, there are those that can’t even afford food and much less face masks or hand sanitizers. Social distancing is a privilege. It means you have a house large enough, running water, or money to buy protection equipment. The houses with the fewest meters and least light are also the ones with the most fear. I have been going out these past days to volunteer in two organizations; a food bank preparing basic need kits and food that will be distributed around Madrid to people without resources and another that helps distribute face masks and protection equipment to hospitals, workers and nursing homes. We know that there is a lack of equipment around the country, what we have not yet seen is what lengths we have reached of political negligence. What I mean to emphasize is the importance of communication in a state of crisis. Because Spain is not only going through a sanitary crisis, but one of political communication. Photos by me
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March 2022
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