“Shooting Covid”, a book and an exhibition on the beginnings of the pandemic in Mulhouse

Covid shoot, the title is eloquent and has a double meaning. Words to express the primary desire to end the virus, but also images, so as not to forget. Two years to the day, after the first times of the Covid which have forever marked the memory of Mulhouse residents, press photographer Catherine Kohler is exhibiting her photos to bear witness to this exceptional period. A book accompanies this exhibition visible until May 31, 2022 at the municipal archives.

“I like to take my time. Wander. Lose myself. Look to immerse myself. The street is a spectacle that unfolds before my eyes” : it is with these few words that Catherine Kohler presents her work on her website. An almost contemplative approach that exploded in flight in February 2020. We are in Mulhouse and the show is turning into a nightmare. The Haut-Rhin prefecture becomes the epicenter of the disease. Death is omnipresent, emergencies are saturated, fear lurks. From then on, Catherine Kohler, a freelance photographer based in Mulhouse, took her camera and tirelessly captured the daily life of a city on borrowed time for the Sipa agency.

So many clichés published in the press and on social networks that strike David Bourgeois, then archivist at the City of Mulhouse. He sees in them “a first-class historical source”. He decides to contact the photographer who does not hesitate not to donate 400 snaps. “I wanted us to keep track. People all want to move on but I would really like us to remember what happened,” she says. Some are not about to forget, and for good reason. That day, in the aisles of the Municipal Archives, Robert Muller, survivor of the Covid: “I was in the military tent for 43 days in a coma. It must be remembered and for me it is a return to life”, he confides.

Thirty shots make up this exhibition. Some photos remain out of sight because they are too shocking, like those of the saturated crematorium.

With caregivers, soldiers but also residents, Catherine Kholer follows the daily life of Mulhouse residents for three long months. A look closer to the fatal reality but without any voyeurism. We see this military hospital being set up in a few days at the foot of the hospital center or even these men dressed in full suits disinfecting the streets.

Scenes of war in the deserted city where only ambulance sirens break the silence. And then also, the trigger for Catherine Kohler’s camera. Because for the photographer, we must not stop testifying. For posterity first, but also to exorcise this unprecedented period, where dramas and small pleasures cohabited, like here, at nightfall. “I say to myself: I am going to take photos of the people who are on their balconies every evening at 8 p.m., to show that they are still there, that they are alive and that they support the nursing staff on the front 24 hours a day. 24. It was such a cool moment to photograph,” she remembers.

Two years have passed and Catherine Kohler has collected all these moments of life in a book. 264 pages punctuated chronologically by 170 shots, mostly in black and white, and texts co-written with the journalist-editor Laura Penchina.

“Shooting Covid”- Exhibition by Catherine Kohler at the Municipal Archives of Mulhouse until May 31, 2022. Monday to Friday: 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday: 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.