@emanuela_amato

Art Director - Dust Magazine

Paris, France

How are you living the quarantine: fears and dreams?

I’ve always mostly worked from home, so I’m used to spending long periods of time without leaving the house, I’m quite of a loner and I always have alternate periods in which I detox from everyone and everything and which help me to reset my mind. I recently moved to Paris with my boyfriend after one and a half years of a long-distance relationship - life is funny sometimes - and right after that, the quarantine started. I must admit that Paris completely empty is quite exceptional, places that you would never be able to enjoy alone are now there in front of you in this surreal silence, and I feel very lucky to have the chance to appreciate this city in such a special way.

I take this time as it comes and I try not to stress about it. The worst you can do is to think that you must create or do something extraordinary just because in social media everyone seems to have a goal at this moment, but I can’t disagree more. Sometimes to do nothing and just chill is the best you can do, as Marina Abramovic says: “Doing nothing is the beginning of something”.

During my day I stay in touch with my family and friends in Italy, and that takes hours. I cook - a lot - watch movies, play board games (I love them), listen to music, I research images for my projects and of course, I try to inform myself daily about the evolution of the pandemic.

I’m taking this time as a gift, of course, I’m really worried about what will come next and how long will this take to end, but also I think this is a clear message from our planet, suggesting ALL of us to slow down. It’s such a big opportunity to rethink our ways of living and to understand what was not really necessary before. Seeing a lot of the big fashion houses now producing masks to help the doctors, redefines completely our scale of what is really important. Our planet heals fast and we are already seeing the results after just 4 weeks of lockdown. My fear is, once this is over, everything will return the same or even worse than before. 

What is your soundtrack?

I’m cancer so I experience big mood swings during my day. I’m mostly melancholic today, for example, I was listening to Brian Eno - Golden Hours, and his whole album ‘Another Green World.’ Yesterday I was into 80’s disco, haha.