August 2020, New York is still in emergency limbo. Restrictions and closures remain suspended, as do lives, trips are canceled, programs diverted, quarantines forced.

Paolo Testa tells us about the local beach, the new addictions, the distracted lives that populate this unique New York summer.

The beach of Rockaway, the omniscient American flag, the masks, the little pools in the streets of the city. New York has always been a whore, and this summer 2020 reveals a sloppy whore, offered without courtesy by Paolo’s gaze.

Through desaturated images, we see raw, slurred scenes. We see a NYC that few intimate people know, a panorama as normal as unreal.

And this is the essence of a life on the beach that does not exist, maybe we just imagined it.