Loneliness is a theme that I have been exploring since 2014, when I first saw Nguan’s series, How Loneliness Goes, in the Art Science Museum.
Over the past year, through the ever changing rules and regulations laid down by the government during the pandemic, these feelings of loneliness and the yearning for social interactions in my heart have grown exponentially.
I decided to create this series by staging a number of portraits, showcasing various activities that the subject has done alone throughout the pandemic, with my emotions seeping into every portrait that is crafted. The series is done in black and white as I felt that the emotions were amplified in monochrome.
(On a personal note, I cannot thank Shan enough for helping me out with this project which is partly for school, and partly for my personal artistic pursuits. I have long wanted to create this conceptual series of photographs and it is an idea that I have remoulded over and over because I could never find the right subject, the right place, and the right approach. This module taught me how to break from the norms of portraiture photography, and it is partly why I am able to finally execute this series the way I truly wanted it to be. The other part is Shan simply believing in me and giving me full control to pose her in all of the shots, despite her not having any modelling background. This series would not have been possible otherwise. So again, thank you.)
