As the whole word was on strict stay-at-home orders in a global effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Barbara Duriau, a Belgian woman living in Amsterdam, took it upon herself to break up the monotony by creating a Facebook group called “View from my window.”
Duriau recounted on the group’s Kickstarter page, “On March 22, as I looked out of my apartment window in the heart of Amsterdam, I realized that this view would become the only constant in my life in the weeks to come. Unable to travel anywhere, I began to wonder what life was like for people around the world, isolated at home, unable to visit friends or family. How were people from all walks of life experiencing these difficult and challenging times? And then I said to myself, ‘What if we all shared our view? Let’s use Facebook to connect the four corners of the world. Let’s stay safe, stay home, yet travel the world by sharing the view from our window.’”
What started as a small circle of 60 grew into a 2.3 million strong group with strangers, bonded in lockdown, sharing the views out of their windows. From Shreveport, Louisiana, to the Maldives, thousands of posts have come in from around the globe. The group contains “every kind of photo imaginable,” according to Duriau, “from backstreets to boulevards, parking lots to snow covered mountains, muddy puddles to pristine lakes. Every picture has told a story and has been a way of reaching out to others.”
We were inspired by Duriau’s idea and asked our readers to share some local views from their windows during the stay-at-home orders. The submissions did not disappoint! To check out the official “View from my window” group, visit Facebook.com/Groups/ViewFromMyWindow.
