My Friends: On Loneliness, Belonging and Emmanuel Bove

Emmanuel Bove's "My Friends" was published in 1924, but nearly 100 years later, it came into my hands during the strange time of the COVID lockdowns. As a new resident of a city I had only visited a couple of times before moving there, in a country where I am a foreigner, I identified with the story of Victor Baton, a retired soldier in post-war Paris, who is looking to find meaningful connections and to feel accepted and loved. Besides wanting true friends, Victor fantasizes about belonging to a higher class and experiencing a freedom that is not available to those in his social position. This wonderful novel, sad and comic at times, is not only a story about social anxiety but also gives insight into the deep and personal loneliness that many experience today.

I created a series of self-portraits on 35mm film with the intention of depicting several scenes from the book. The images were digitally scanned and printed on photographic paper. Photographs are taken in Oxford, 2021.