Myron Ingham

Inertia 

My project Inertia is a short documentary and photo zine project created in response to the Coronavirus pandemic which explores the effect that it has had on one’s character and identity, and their perception of others. 

The title represents the halting of pre-pandemic life as we knew it, but also represents the continued evolution of the character and identity of the subjects. Whether due to, or in spite of, external forces, their character has continued to evolve and change them into a different person than they were 12 months ago. 

The documentary is a story of the past 12 months. I wanted to start by exploring the identity of the subjects one year ago, moving on to discussing their experiences over the past 12 months, before ending with a comparison of their past self to their current self. 

The zine is a collection of images based on the interviews in the documentary as well as my own experiences in the past year. To represent the face coverings in the pandemic, I decided to omit all faces from the collection, having the subjects portray their identity in other ways such as written words and abstract poses. No physical direction was given, instead subjects were prompted to think about their experiences over the past year and express that in their own way, with the one rule of ‘hide your face’. 

The concept of the written signs was inspired by Gillian Wearing and the visual styling of the photos was inspired by Lindsay Adler and Cameron Hoerth.