Loneliness and Joy

Simple but complex,

Short but who knows where is the end,

Luminous but dark,

Lonely but not.

Loneliness and Joy is a long-term project about life on Inisheer, a limestone island off the west coast of Ireland, where just 340 people live between stone walls and the Atlantic wind. Over a year, I keep returning there, walking the same roads, visiting the same bars and homes, and meeting people who live slowly, stubbornly, and mostly offline.

The project focuses on those who have chosen to stay, or who never left. A man tends his potato patch and, with a soft nostalgia, recalls drinking Guinness, dancing, and running barefoot through the village at night. A woman who has never set foot off the island tells me it’s the only place she could ever be. A flutist comes to the pub each evening to drink schnapps, play a tune, and remember his parents who first met there decades ago.

The island isn’t untouched; there are tourists, students, and ferry timetables. But the locals there live in a rhythm that feels separate. Not nostalgic, but rooted. Quiet. Intact.

Loneliness and Joy documents this space between resilience and disappearance- a quiet refusal to vanish in a world that values speed and visibility.