Postcards from Home – 17 – Sarah Pabst

“I suddenly noticed I wanted to work on motherhood, but all its different chapters – the secrets and taboos – the things we don’t really talk about”

Sarah Pabst is a freelance photographer covering documentary and visual storytelling for international media outlets and news organisations. You can reference her work on Bloomberg, her website and Instagram. She’s also a member of Women Photograph and posts to WP the Journal too.

Sarah lives in Buenos Aires in Argentina with her husband and toddler daughter. She recorded this postcard on 30th May. 

International photography assignments have been put on hold during the COVID-19 lockdown, but Sarah hasn’t been idle. 

In this postcard, Sarah talks about documenting family life, and an unexpected loss, that has unlocked a surprising period of personal creative growth.

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Context

Coronavirus was imported into Argentina by citizens returning from holidays in Europe during March. President Alberto Fernandez was quick to lockdown the country by 20 March. 

This is one factor behind why the country, as of 5 June, has so far seen a relatively low 20,197 diagnosed cases and 608 deaths. In contrast, neighbouring Brazil has officially reported 615,870 cases and 34,039 deaths. 

Central and South America is now the focus of the Coronavirus pandemic and cases are expected to continue rising. 

Cases have recently spiked in Buenos Aires’ slums, home to the capital’s low income workers. In one week, confirmed cases rose by 8,000. This has meant lockdown will extend by another three weeks to 28 June for areas where COVID-19 is spreading, however there will be a slight loosening of restrictions elsewhere. 

Responding to this spike, Security minister Berni said, “This is like the Titanic, we’ve got an iceberg ahead and we can chose to hit it head-on or from the side – but the crash is inevitable.”