Been On My Own For Long Enough

Photographers Benedict Brink and Clare Shilland unveil an intimate book project with MOON and SPACE Magazine chronicling life in lockdown. Two of London’s most promising photographers, Benedict Brink and Clare Shilland, have collaborated on a book with the team behind SPACE magazine and its publishers MOON, launching in October 2020. Been On My Own For Long Enough features photographs taken from March to September 2020 during lockdown. In the absence of work and routine Clare and Benedict shot the world around them intuitively and compulsively – reflecting their need to connect to and understand their environment and experiences through images. Their observations have now been turned into a book, and an exhibition at APM gallery in south London October 23rd. Clare Shilland spent lockdown at home in Peckham, London, with her partner and children. Benedict was in her flat in London and later in the English countryside. The title of their joint project, Been On My Own For Long Enough, is a line from Blinding Lights by The Weekend, a song played to death over summer, the unofficial anthem of lockdown. Clare and her kids danced to it a hundred times in the kitchen. Benedict played it on TikTok constantly. Half the world was listening to that song, everyone on their own. Together. “Clare’s intensely personal visual record of family life in lockdown features bloody noses, bathtimes, cut knees and scraped skin. Benedict’s work is intimate and immediate, exploring beauty, texture, environment, desire, and sensuality in the everyday. On one hand, these are off-guard, personal moments. On the other they tell a story of this anxious strange time, which we can all relate to, a story we felt an urge to share with the world. ” - Frederik Bjerregaard, creative director, Moon