Pa r i s & B e r l i n Juliette Aubin
“Your photos are now on display on the wall of art and love.” How intimate those words sounded together. Photos I had thoughtfully snapped outside; to be displayed in someone else’s home. This was a few months after I had just moved to Paris. Locked into a shabby but homely apartment for months on end, it was the best prison I could have hoped for. Completely free from others’ eyes, the overwhelming pressure to exist faded. On an eerily warm November day, I trespassed the threshold between my private world and the public world. My plan was to wander the city’s wide streets and its underground web of trains to take pictures. On my screen, I scrolled through a list of some landmarks with the firm intention to connect the dots in whichever order I wanted. Creating something out of nothing is daunting, but giants have already walked there. Stepping into their steps felt warm and comforting. Yet something about it was vertiginously overwhelming. How does one deal with the weight of crushing tradition? The artist – however confined their circle may be – always keeps an audience in a room of their head. And as a matter of fact, I couldn’t shake my ‘audience’ out of my head. I was desperately trying to think of the photos rather than the person I needed to send them to. I felt the need to launch digital flare alerts for that close, yet distant person. I don’t think I felt particularly lonely – I was more than glad to be alone; but there was that deep-seated feeling of wanting to share my impressions with someone else. Someone who also wanted to share their impressions. Months before our respective return home, we attended the same English university, and we had only bumped into each other a couple of times, without ever daring to talk to each other. Our connection was recent. Its creation had not been planned, but I had seen them everywhere I went. So many times, that it did not feel coincidental anymore. Eventually, I saw a friendship request pop up in my Facebook feed. It somehow felt long overdue. I decided to invite him to do those things that we normally did separately, together. 61
