CLASSROOM SELF -PORTRAITS
SCHOOL DURING THE PANDEMIC
 

“Classroom self-portraits” is a photographic and social project about the face-to-face teaching during the Covid-19 health emergency. In Italy the vaccination campaign is very slow and the new generations will have to continue to experience school between distance learning and lessons in presence for one week a month for a long time to come. The project describes the daily dynamics and feelings that students, teachers and school staff are experiencing because of the pandemic. During this health emergency, the concept of education and teaching has changed for both students and teachers. During this health emergency, the idea of school has changed universally between the use of new technologies and the desire of the people to live in society. During this health emergency, the concept of education and teaching has changed for both students and teachers, in method and social relations as never before in history. The fundamental role of the teacher in attendance has emerged, as a figure who represents not only an educator but a reference for the growth of the youths. At the same time, the new generations, closed in their homes, have re-evaluated the school not only as a place for teaching but as an ideal environment in which to socialise and grow. The portraits were taken remotely. Each class, using a phone or a camera, took a “class self-timer”, following the instructions of the photographer-director who set every last detail of the scene in video call (Whattapp or ZOOM). The students shared their time, their feelings and their image with the photographer and then with the external company. This operation not only has the function of narrating, from the outside to the inside, the dynamics of “face-to-face teaching , but also has the social aim of making the pupils share their mental and physical status, from the inside to the outside, underlining the importance of “school” for the new generations. A human need of students that goes beyond mere didactics and searches for the true meaning of school.