Damien Frost

BY: Sarah Sunday

As we forcibly ease into month three of lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, and social distancing, the world in which artists and performers inhibit continues to take immeasurable hits. Yet, in this new normal, creativity has progressively reacclimated, taking on a number of new forms in leaps and bounds. Increasingly, alternative art styles have flourished, challenging and enticing viewers from the comfort of their homes. London-based photographer Damien Frost has wholly honed in on his current project Social Distancing, Portraits to continue his unfounded passion for portrait photography, playing upon the outrageous oxymoron that is social distancing — the term that first intrigued and moved Frost to begin this project.

Previous to the crisis, Frost spent his weekdays within the theatre and arts sector, and his weekends documenting the scintillating queer nightlife in a project and book entitled Night Flowers. Optimizing on the essence of unpredictability, Frost would arrive at night clubs with little to no expectation of who the subjects of that night might be. Frost spoke with PROVOKR, saying, “The people in the Night Flowers photos aren’t styled or pre-arranged — they’re photographed “as found” and I enjoy this element of randomness and surprise.” Similarly, Social Distancing, Portraits has come to mirror the same premise.

Encompassing a sense of creative fluidity, the project has proffered a far greater persona than originally expected. “Initially, I wasn’t planning on the portraits to be just about drag performers, club kids, and other members of the alternative queer community because I thought people wouldn’t be putting on looks or transforming themselves during quarantine.” Yet, in a time when getting done up seems fruitless for most, the queer community had zealously flocked to the digital world to find a space to display their looks, many posing for Frost before or after LGBTQ live streaming events.

Speaking on the craft, Frost commented, “At first I started to add flowers to distract from the iPad, which seemed a bit cold. As the project has progressed I’ve been adding more flowers and keeping the dead and dried flowers […] to mark the passage of time.” Referring to vanitas, a 17-century genre of Dutch painting which symbolizes the heavy inevitability of mortality, Frost added, “These [images] represent the passing of time and are often a meditation on life and death — thoughts not far from everyone’s minds during a global pandemic.”

While artists and performers across nations find themselves grounded at a very uncertain precipice, there is a tangible truth to the tenacity of the people continually composing themselves and gathering in collaboration with others, near and far. From Italy to Chile; from Russia to India — the wingspan of the project has grown to glittering heights. “The most encouraging thing from all of this is seeing how resilient and positive people have been even when their own circumstances have been really difficult. There’s been a real hope that we can learn from this and maybe build a better world that’s fairer for everyone at the end of this.”