“Si Proches” by Emeric Gallego

2021. Fano. A small island in Denmark. This island is deserted of its inhabitants in the summer after an annual kite festival. By a happy coincidence, I found myself in this amazing place, in rooms where nature seems to have taken over. This trip undertaken with a precious person was the first since confinement. This curious period had taught us silence and solitude, and I was amazed to find that this island offered the same thing every time. I spent two weeks in this place where calm rests. At a time when the world is becoming more and more adept at technology and modernisms, we come to forget what silence and wonder are. With Aurora, we were returning from Stockholm and in search of inspiration for our artistic works, we landed on this island which can be reached by ferry. No one could have foreseen the isolation into which we were about to plunge. At first, it reminded us of confinement but in an Earth that belonged only to us. I had to make up my mind, I had a new reality in front of me.

That of a world that encourages inspiration, wonder in which nature is more beautiful and seems in harmony. We didn’t even have the value of time anymore, all this seemed both eternal and ephemeral. I observed this reality that surrounded me. I contemplate these landscapes that could disappear overnight.Its vast expanses, its infinite horizons could only impress the gaze of those who coveted them. It was totally impossible to think of anything else. This reality was distinguished between solitude and freedom. From this look, something was released in me. Inspiration and appeasement. There was something therapeutic about these vast places. I tried to capture the nature of these places that seemed so far away, so lost. Aurora then became the only inhabitant of this island, a modern traveler in a forgotten world. The very few inhabitants that we had met only seemed like visitors disappearing in the surroundings. She and I had never been “so close” when our friendship was in crisis. We were getting lost. Because that was also the purpose of this trip, to remember this friendship that was destroyed today. “Si Proches” is the story of my most beautiful story of adrift friendship, but it’s also the story of a world that is gradually being lost. A world of which we keep traces but of which we destroy considerably. I would have liked “Si Proches” to be eternal, but all this is only an ephemeral reflection, releasing my most beautiful emotions. It is the story of a farewell.