, Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Sunday, Mar. 22, 2019. Photographer: Erica Canepa
I am lucky enough to live on the 25th floor in my building in Buenos Aires. The apartment is small, but my partner and I fell in love with the view the moment we set foot in it three years ago. The sky from up here is stunning, and I spend long hours looking at the clouds. For some reason, only since the quarantine did I realize how many neighbors I have. From my balcony, I’ve watched neighbors using their terraces to escape their closed flats, spending time in little squares of open air. I’ve slowly noticed their little habits: the families who meet on the rooftop as their children play football together, the girl who chain-smokes cigarettes, the couple that always has dinner on the terrace and chats until late. In my mind, I invent stories about them with the few details I can catch from up here, and I feel like we’re friends, even though they probably don’t know about my existence. “Like L.B. Jefferies in ‘Rear Window,’ I look at all of them with my long lens. I spy these little and intense worlds with curiosity. Watching them is a way to feel life around me and to contrast the horrible news that is coming from Italy, my motherland. Or, maybe, Hitchcock would just call me a voyeur.