“My \ was dull compared to what I’d once imagined it could be.I couldn’t shake the sense that my predictable, ruthlessly optimized life had started to feel maddeningly claustrophobic”. 

Get the picture. Bianca Booker.

March 2024:

A landscape journey from Utah to Nevada by car. Here I was, confronted by the scales of a country that reach two oceans. Infinite, endless lands that continue far beyond my eyes could reach.

First stop: Spiral Jetty, Utah Desert, 6pm.

Deep horizon

Deep, deep blue horizon

Peaceful view

In the distance

Light

I run.

Heavy clouds

Celling made by clouds

Mountain walls

I feel trapped.

I run.

I run.

Horizon with end

Trapped.

If I swim, can I scape?

(…) What I found was a new form of claustrophobia, an open kind, distinct from agoraphobia. I felt trapped everywhere-open or closed spaces-a room, an apartment, a house, a backyard, a street, a city center, a small town, the sea, the jungle, the mountains, or the sky.

Claustrophobia had always been with me, a companion that never left. Now, it has transformed and appears unexpectedly, regardless of the space or its typology. Always present in fast heartbeats and heavy breaths.