Corona Rhapsody - is this real life?

Dates

2020 - Ongoing
Author

Rafael Heygster
Recognition

Shortlisted - PhMuseum Days 2021 Open Call

Since the outbreak of the global Corona pandemic, we have often been confronted with the questions of what is actually happening around us and where the border between fantasy and reality lies. In the beginning the situation felt to us like a surreal dream.

We combine different aspects and scenarios happening during Covid-19 in Germany and show the tension between public life, the infrastructural apparatus behind it and the people who move in this space.

Corona Rhapsody is a contribution to the discussion on the question of what changes in our society will be caused by the pandemic. The work questions how the current situation is presented by the media and perceived by the public, to what extent this corresponds to subjective experiences, how the pandemic is possibly being instrumentalized for political purposes, and how we will remember the coronavirus crisis in the future.

This is a collaboration between Rafael Heygster and Helena Manhartsberger. Working as a duo allowed us to illuminate unstaged scenarios with external flashes to visualize our surreal feeling to the events.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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Despite many warnings from the authorities, countless excursionists head for the winter regions in January. Two hikers on the peak of the Brocken, the highest mountain in the Harz, a low mountain range in Germany.

© Rafael Heygster - Trainee officers of the Bundeswehr practice in April in a makeshift hospital how to deal with coronapatients.

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Trainee officers of the Bundeswehr practice in April in a makeshift hospital how to deal with coronapatients.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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One of about 400 German vaccination centres was set up in the Festhalle in Frankfurt. Before the pandemic, parties and dances were held in this hall. Due to difficulties in the delivery and distribution of the vaccine, the vaccination centres in Germany can only be put into operation in January.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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One of about 400 German vaccination centres was set up in the Festhalle in Frankfurt. Before the pandemic, parties and dances were held in this hall. Due to difficulties in the delivery and distribution of the vaccine, the vaccination centres in Germany can only be put into operation in January.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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Biontech employees perform a choreography staged by Biontech at the Biontech plant in Marburg as part of a press event to show what it would look like if they were to perform work steps on a bioreactor in cleanroom suits. From April 2021, one billion Imof doses per year can be produced in this plant.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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During the Coroan crisis, not only does social inequality become more apparent, but social solidarity also becomes stronger. Women at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Hanover. Protests are taking place in America, Australia, Asia and Europe following the killing of African-American George Floyd by white police officers. They are directed against racial profiling, police violence and racism.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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In the improvised parliament in Bremen, all politicians strictly adhere to the valid distance rules in order to set a positive example for the citizens, a member of parliament tells. As soon as they leave the hall, however, many of them take the distance rules less seriously and stand closely together in groups without mouth protection.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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In the stadium of the football team Borussia Mönchengladbach, cardboard mates were set up as a backdrop for ghost games. Fans can upload their own photos online, these will be printed on cardboard stands and placed in the stadium. At the time of the photo, about 21,000 soccer fans have participated.

© Rafael Heygster - Families take a walk in compliance with the regulations of social distancing in Munic, one day before Christmas Eve

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Families take a walk in compliance with the regulations of social distancing in Munic, one day before Christmas Eve

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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City councillors are waiting for the end of an interview with their Minister of the Interior, Thomas Strobel, at a press event on the administrative assistance of the German Armed Forces at the arrival centre in Heidelberg.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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Ilona W. and her husband Andreas demonstrate at a „hygiene demo“ in Hanover together with right-wing extremist conspiracy believers against the measures to limit the spread of corona. They have written „muzzle“ on their protective masks.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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Pastor Jens Lohse holds the Easter Vigil Mass outside his church, as indoor services are prohibited at this time due to the lockdown.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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Policewomen of the equestrian squad posefor a portrait during their patrol at the Maschseein Hanover, on the day when masks arecompulsory in Germany.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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In mid-June, 120 of 700 residents of a prefabricated building in northern germany are infected with corona. The city bans all residents from leaving the housing complex, imposes a quarantine and puts up fences.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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In Hannover Exhibition Halls, a makeshifthospital has been set up in March. Whereusually trade fairs take place in Hannover,treatment facilities were created for 500Covid-19 patients.Until today it still notnecessary to open the new builded infrastructure.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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Soldier Adriana Helfen is a medical-technicallaboratory assistant at the Institute for Microbiology of the German Armed Forcesin Munich. She wears a protective suit withwhich the soldiers in the high-security laboratoryprotect themselves in direct contact withthe corona virus during their research.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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The billionaire Winfried Stöcker has developed his own vaccine in his private laboratories, which he injected himself and his family at home. Studies by independent institutes have proven that they are now immune to infections with the coronavirus. His vaccine is denied official approval because he did not adhere to legal requirements during its development.

© Rafael Heygster - Image from the Corona Rhapsody - is this real life? photography project

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Since mass events are prohibited in April 2020, the cultural industry is developing new ways of holding events. In Hanover, car concerts with up to 1200 vehicles regularly take place on the Schützenplatz. Family Hencke attends a show of the rock band „Fury in the Slaughterhouse“. The music is transmitted by radio to the car radios.

© Rafael Heygster - Soldiers on the way to an exercise at a makeshift hospital in the exhibition halls in Hannover.

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Soldiers on the way to an exercise at a makeshift hospital in the exhibition halls in Hannover.