First study on empty places in photography and the Covid-19 pandemic In the aftermath of Covid-19, the subject of ‘empty places’ has gained renewed topicality and resonance. Watching, Waiting presents a collection of essays that brings emptiness into interdisciplinary focus as an object of study that extends beyond the present. The contributors approach the specific interrelationships of photography and place through emptiness by considering historical and contemporary material in equal measure. Drawing on architecture, anthropology, sociology, and public health, among other fields, they provide insights into geographically and temporally diverse production models of empty places and their corresponding complex and sensitive global and local relations, while also tackling the ethics of behaviour and protests that unfold within them. The book's chapters, both photographic and scholarly essays, cover areas that range widely both thematically and geographically, spanning static film footage of Nicosia's Buffer Zone, protest photographs in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in Bristol, staged images from the University of Zagreb's ethnological archives, historic landscape and architectural photography, aerial shots of Covid-19 mass graves in Brazil, photos of artificially built field hospitals and quarantine rooms during the pandemic, and images of empty airports at night. Through still and moving images, Watching, Waiting examines the photographic aestheticisation of emptiness, existing stereotypes of ‘empty places’, and transformations of human experiences. In the aftermath of Covid-19, the subject of ‘empty places’ has gained renewed topicality and resonance. Watching, Waiting presents a collection of essays that brings emptiness into interdisciplinary focus as an object of study that extends beyond the present. The contributors approach the specific interrelationships of photography and place through emptiness by considering historical and contemporary material in equal measure. Drawing on architecture, anthropology, sociology, and public health, among other fields, they provide insights into geographically and temporally diverse production models of empty places and their corresponding complex and sensitive global and local relations, while also tackling the ethics of behaviour and protests that unfold within them. The book's chapters, both photographic and scholarly essays, cover areas that range widely both thematically and geographically, spanning static film footage of Nicosia's Buffer Zone, protest photographs in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in Bristol, staged images from the University of Zagreb's ethnological archives, historic landscape and architectural photography, aerial shots of Covid-19 mass graves in Brazil, photos of artificially built field hospitals and quarantine rooms during the pandemic, and images of empty airports at night. Through still and moving images, Watching, Waiting examines the photographic aestheticisation of emptiness, existing stereotypes of ‘empty places’, and transformations of human experiences. Acknowledgements Introduction: Watching, Waiting Sandra Križić Roban and Ana Šverko The Politics of Emptiness Chapter 1. Separation Anxiety: Filming the Nicosia Buffer Zone Stuart Moore and Kayla Parker Chapter 2. The Empty Plinth and the Politics of Emptiness Bec Rengel Chapter 3. Occupying Empty Places : Political Protest and Solidarity Among Strangers in Times of Social Distancing Anna Schober Revisiting Emptiness Chapter 4. Staging Isolation: Images of Seclusion and Separation Catlin Langford Chapter 5. Milovan Gavazzi and Ethnographic Photography : Practices and Policies of Croatian Field Research and Archiving in the First Half of the Twentieth Century Tihana Rubić Chapter 6. Emptiness as a Tool in the Representation of Public Health Monuments in Croatia Stella Fatović-Ferenčić and Martin Kuhar Rethinking Emptiness Chapter 7. Silent Ruins: Traditions, Photographs, and the Perception of the Void Elke Katharina Wittich Chapter 8. A Land of Collective Solitude Isabelle Catucci The Performance of Emptiness Chapter 9. The Power of Emptiness : Arne Jacobsen’s National Bank, Copenhagen, 1961–1978 Ruth Baumeister Chapter 10. Ornament as a Regulatory System : Photographic Representations of Field Hospitals During the Covid-19 Pandemic Klaudija Sabo Chapter 11. Deconstructing Understandings of Emptiness : An Examination of Representations of Transitory Space and ‘Non-place’ in Photography Jessie Martin A Visual Essay: Documenting Emptiness Chapter 12. Distance, Proximity Luca Nostri About the Contributors