PERSEVERE
Death Stranding, 2020
Death Stranding, 2020
Death Stranding was released last month on PC. Amid this COVID-19 Pandemic. Among such a bleak real-life backdrop, this game provided such a profoundly different experience. It paralleled what so many of us have been dealing with for over five months now. In a lockdown, locked up inside.. much like the individuals who dotted the shattered Earth, plagued by an invisible force that threatened their existence.
I felt like I was in a mental fog taking these shots, almost like in a conscious state between a dream and a nightmare - something that still haunts me.. and perhaps will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This fog made it exceptionally difficult to find a purpose in this series. I would just aimlessly walk, explore, and have moments of sincere introspection at the peak of a mountain - overlooking the snow-covered wilderness and ruins of what once was humanity on Death Stranding's Earth.
Questions would abound.. What would be left of my Earth once this was done? What would we be as humans? So many lives have been lost.. will be lost.. will we lose our humanity as well?
But then you would have moments of encouragement, digital whispers of hope that would reach out, transcend the physical, and touch your very soul.
So this series is a tribute to Death Stranding, but it's more than that. Perhaps a tribute to perseverance, that after every sunset, every darkest moment of the night, the morning will arrive - the sun will rise again.
Let's persevere no matter how dark this time becomes.
Joshua Taylor, July 2020
All photographs taken by Joshua Taylor.
All content within photographs property of 505 Games / Kojima Productions.
All photographs taken by Joshua Taylor.
All content within photographs property of 505 Games / Kojima Productions.
