A Certain Distance
25 years ago I woke up in a hospital with no memory of how I had gotten there. ‘A Certain Distance’ is an ongoing series of images exploring the things I haven’t been able to say to anyone. I repeatedly think that these aren’t the images I want to take. That this is a story I do not want to tell. Life now is often measured in the time between cigarettes.
© Philip LePage
© Philip LePage
© Philip LePage
I didn’t realize that in trying to hold things together I would make it even worse. That the distance I needed to maintain the fantasy would slowly separate me entirely from the people I love. It is impossible to have a connection to someone who can’t connect.
The images in this series are in some ways fragmented. Lives that no longer exist and disjointed memories that can’t be trusted mix with now. The myth we perceive as ourselves. They exist in that contradictory space between what I know and what I feel.
© Philip LePage
© Philip LePage
© Philip LePage
© Philip LePage
This is an ongoing project with the goal of producing a series of photographic short stories that explore the deeply personal space between what is known and what is felt: a study of mental illness.
BIO
Philip LePage (1995 BA Art History, UBC) was born in 1969 in Northern Canada but left and remained in Europe and Asia for 13 years. He currently lives on Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Photography for Philip LePage is very centered on the contradictions inherent in ideas of home, identity and belonging. He thinks of photography as a journey between two worlds. A middle ground that separates and joins at the same time, a liminal space.