Familuar Stranger

Below is a collaberation between myself and Tom Miles. I have responded to photos that he has took. The theme that we all working on is community so we had a chat about community and one thing that stuck in my mind was a contradicting flaw in the ideal of community. Even though it's purpose is to bring people together, it also excludes people because there are normally rules or restrictions in rder to be part of a community.

Tome went out in the city and took photographs of complete strangers and the results where quite surprising, I responded to these photos and went out in leeds and thought and jotted down ideas. Then I came back to my flat and looked at the photos and did some creative writing. The results are follwing:


Familuar Strangers

A city, a town, a village, a place, in this tiny world on this big planet. Bound by city borders, I walk around my stomping ground, a thousand sounds and movements pulsate through me, countless sights, coils of causality all around me in this one place.People walking, running, pushing, going places, seeing people, hearing sounds.With all this speed and haste of everyone around me in this city, in this spot I stand alone. Time slows down for me and with this surprising gift a shining beacon pierces through the haze in form of a bright wide smile, a cheeky grin connects with me.
Leaving me perplexed and unaware of the sounds, the movements, the people rushing towards me, walking past me, walking through me.
Just like them I was in a world of my own, singular and remote.

I get my bearings, shake my clouded thoughts, my hazey dreams. The wind rips through us all, paths of air connect us, we are all here, part of the same living, breathing, machine of a city.

We all keep it going or it keeps us going.Going and going on meeting people, feeling and frolicking new sensations, new experiences. In this place, in this time where we are strangers to everyone, wearingly afraid, cautious or ignorant to each other, I make my own connections, my own sensations, my own feelings with people I meet, people that smile, cause laughter to ring out. bring a sense of fantasy to a scary reality. With my own connections and my own thoughts I make my own community of moments and memories that people give me.

Selfish as it sounds, but in this hub of familiarity lies possibilities for that intimate moment, that cheerful smile, that nervous giggle. That moment, that memory makes the whole rushing world around me disappear. I am oblivious to the sounds, the movements, the people.