‘Eyes down

Turn the other cheek

Don’t look anyone in the eye

Don’t look up

Keep walking

Keep breathing

Focus on what is ahead’

‘I want it all to go back to the way it was before’ was a series of work made entirely on my i-phone in the first three weeks of the pandemic lockdown in 2020.

In the UK we were permitted one hour of exercise a day. I chose to walk in woodland near my home. I wanted to document these walks. My mobile phone became a tool whereby I would take images and use an editing tool to ‘glitch’ them. My camera was a computer bringing me information about the unfolding story of death and panic worldwide.

The physical act of walking became vital for my mental health and practice. With the city streets being empty and dead I began to question ‘what do I now photograph?’

These walks were interrupted with news updates and government announcements. I was trying to make sense of this new strange frightening moment in time. This was my source of information and misinf

Pippa Healy is a photographic artist based in London. Her practice is primarily diaristic. It is concerned with themes of loss, longing, violence and grief. Her work has been exhibited internationally and her zines are part of the Martin Parr Foundation and Tate Gallery collection.

Healy works with both analogue and digital photography as well as printmaking techniques such as screen-printing and photopolymer. Her handmade ‘Zines’, which are often raw, abject and diaristic in style are central to her practice. She was the recipient of the 2020 Bainbridge Studio Prize and was a finalist for The Signature Art Prize 2021.