This is What the Void Feels Like

The sound of the freight train moving slowly below June’s high moon. The delicate “I’ll miss you” soon to be crushed under the weight of leaving. This Is What the Void Feels Like not only visualizes but verbalizes the terrible empty feeling that forms itself deep in your gut and makes you breath slow and heavy as it works its way up to the cavity where your nose meets your mouth. There’s an inherent freedom to the emptiness of the space there. There’s freedom in space until the walls quit moving and build violent corners. Each piece of writing describes a moment, or series of moments, in my life where the void-like feeling was ever present. Along with the poems, the photographs are meant to create a proper depiction of what this feeling is. 

The knowing that you’ll never be here again, not in the same way. The looking at the clock to see it’s five already and soon the sun will be gone and soon you’ll be home again. The feeling that you’ve changed without being able to notice quite how.

Inspired by Mark Borthwick and Francesca Woodman’s portraits, This Is What the Void Feels Like contrasts constricted bodies with how overwhelmingly vast indoor spaces can feel. The photographs without specific subjects instead focus on space unused. The pale color scheme mirrors the stagnant feeling of desolation. Overwhelming, but quietly so. The need to hug your knees to your chest and stare straight out the car window.