@subwayhands: the epidemic through the hands of New Yorkers

“All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them” said writer Karen Blixen.
This is exactly what photographer Hannah La Follette Ryan did through the visual storytelling of her account @subwayhands which documents the Coronavirus anxiety experienced by New Yorkers who travel on the subway through close-up shots of their hands. The new precautionary measures and social distance that for a few weeks have entered the life of everyone pass also and above all from our hands: latex gloves, handkerchiefs, sanitizers, the fear of touching a foreign surface. Through these details only seemingly minimal is manifested the change that the virus has brought into our society. 

The account has existed since before the outbreak of Coronavirus. But this only makes the change that is perceived through photographs more evident: from a concentration on aesthetic details, it has moved abruptly to shots that evoke the insecurity of this historical period. In a subway like the one in New York, overcrowded and full of individuals of all origins, the new fear of contagion is evident. Here's what photographer Hannah La Follette Ryan told The New York Times:

I never thought I’d live to see strangers being so respectful of personal space. 

Of all the changes that the coronavirus has brought, in fact, the most important is perhaps the one in the way we interact with the city scenario and everyday objects. The fear of contagion has made us even more alone, and all this shines through from the photographs of @subwayhands, a small but significant chronicle of what it means to live in a city at the same time in the days of the pandemic.