Ege Ilicak - Individuals

An Ode to Solitude

Loneliness is a reality that we all know but few of us are willing to accept. In the noisy hustle and bustle of the cities, in the endless rush of the crowded streets, people who retreat to a corner and take on their own silence... This project traces those silent people who are overlooked. Each frame captures a moment when loneliness is in full view. The city changes, the geography changes, but loneliness appears everywhere with the same nakedness and sharpness.

Collected from different corners of the world, these images seem to depict the inevitable fate of individuals: loneliness. Sometimes in the shadow of large buildings, sometimes in a secluded alleyway; each of these people is closed in on themselves, lost in a world of their own. But isn't that lostness also a sign of a deep awareness? When a person is alone, that is when he is most alone with himself. And perhaps this confrontation makes him exist more than anyone else.

“Individuals - An Ode to Solitude,” reveals this situation. In each photo frame, loneliness appears not as a questioning but as an acceptance. These photographs may not tell a story, but each of them points to a truth.