I struggled with finding my crowd all throughout high school and even in the beginning of college. Making friends didn’t come easily, and weekends home from school felt lonely and unfulfilled. It wasn’t until the summer of 2017 that I started going to see more live music to temporarily escape my anxieties surrounding my family and personal relationships. By luck, I connected with a girl online who had the same music interests as me. We went to all the same shows, but never crossed paths. After we began exchanging messages, she invited me on her next road trip to see one of our favorite bands play live. From there, Hannah and I traveled tirelessly from state to state with little to no money but a desire for spontaneity and adventure. It was through these excruciatingly long road trips that I created an unbreakable bond with Hannah, who pulled me out of a dark time in my life, and helped me meet other people in the music community who would do the same. I found a sense of self worth I didn’t know I had through music, and created so many lifelong friends. From waiting in line for five hours outside venues, visiting Waffle Houses at 3 am, and sleeping in car parking lots on my 21st birthday in Ohio, these are memories I documented but never shared. Guest List is a digital scrapbook exploring self identity and friendship rooted in traveling and music. Through film and digital photographs, screenshots, phone pictures, tweets, and scanned artifacts, I create a (mostly) chronological timeline of my road trip adventures with my best friend and the people we meet along the way.
julia fletcher (b. 1997) is a multidisciplinary artist and photographer living and working in baltimore, md. her work explores internet culture, online perception, and appropriation, usually through the intersection of photo, film, and design. when she’s not taking photos, she’s traveling the east coast to watch her favorite bands live.