Melissa Schriek (Rotterdam) represents loneliness in pictures. 

Loneliness is cold as ice. 

Loneliness feels like hunger.

Loneliness feels as if I want to touch something but I can’t reach it.

I’m not going to lie, creating images that reflect on the feeling of loneliness has been a challenge. It has been difficult. I have felt lonely, but who hasn’t? And if we all felt lonely at some point, did we really feel the same? It was a challenge to create images of a feeling that is universal but personal at the same time.

When I read an article about the number of people who feel lonely, constantly, it touched me. Why aren’t we talking to each other? Why aren’t we talking about loneliness? I wondered if it was still a taboo. I couldn’t imagine what the deep loneliness of the people I read about felt like but hoped that I could translate it into an image.

I made an online advertisement to get in touch with people who are feeling lonely. The conversations I had with them were the starting point of the images I created. I hope this project will inspire a conversation about loneliness.

Melissa Schriek