Friend of a Friend by Sarah Berglund
★☆
“When I started this project, I had a hard time just being here. Life can be so excruciating and nauseating and exhausting. But someday something changes, you live through something quietly, and you feel at peace. A lot of this book is me working through all these feelings. There are whole years I can tuck away quietly, and there are things that happened in between. I care about them all.
When I moved to Toronto, I started to photograph all the people I met through a friend - meeting up in Kensington, following sunlight, making conversation. It was a casual practice; a way of being somewhere and feeling like I was suppose to be there.
Over the next two years, some of the people I met became people I love. my focus shifted, got closer to home. I took photos of my friends frequenting the same neighbourhoods, sleeping in my bedroom, existing under firelight and still-water lakes; walking down empty streets and walking home together. the photos accumulated in my desk drawers, a box in my closet, on my phone. Taking a photo was an act of devotion - it kept me engaged in the feelings of loss and gratitude, handed me confidence, and made me feel real. or it made the world feel real to me.
When I moved away from the city, I was left with this handful of years all mixed up and bruised and gleaming. I thought if I could fit them back together I could find myself in there.
I pasted the photos in journals, made little directionless books. Marked them up all black and blue with ink. Bleeding out pen after pen to find a way of knotting words together. I don't say much out loud. I'm dependant on this to make me feel okay. I don't mind though. Flipping through my notebooks, I watched the words echoing across see-through paper. It clicked to me then how this book would come together.”
★☆
252 pages featuring film photographs and journal pages
Open-stitch binding
Soft-cover
110mm x 148mm x 22mm
ISBN: 978-0-6454066-3-4
Printed in Canada.
Made between 2019-2022. Published independently by Sarah Berglund, 2023. Originally funded through Kickstarter. Supported and distributed by Pure Nowhere.
★☆
For customers outside of Australia/New Zealand, you can grab a copy from Sarah’s website. Limited numbers available.
★☆