I've been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand

Could these sensations make me feel the pleasures of a normal man

Joy Division -  Disorder

Invisible by Deborah Camañes

"Not all who wander are lost."

―J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Photographs are an interpretation of the world, as Susan Sontag once said. Through their lens, photographers offer us a point of view, a particular vision of their surroundings. Some are masters at creating theatrical, symbolic or mannerist compositions, like Duane Michals or Cecil Beaton; others have shown us the rawness and isolation of their reality, like Larry Clark or Nan Goldin; and then there are those who have simply photographed their daily lives, their cameras accompanying their wanderings, flâneurs the likes of Vivian Maier or Stephen Shore. A photographic image is the result of a series of decisions. It is a take on life, revealing of a particular interpretation of the world. The photographs in Disorder by Borja Ballbé are a powerful account of reality, interpreted through loneliness, depression and anxiety. 

In her book, “The Lonely City”, the British author Olivia Laing analyses the concept of loneliness and depression through the work and lives of different artists. She tells us that these “can run deep in the fabric of a person, as much a part of one’s being as laughing easily or having red hair,” like a part of someone’s identity, a distinguishing feature, as stigmatised as any other nonconformist identity. 

Depressive disorders generate shame and fear, and often lead to states of isolation and withdrawal. A kind of paralysis ensues, the sufferer becoming steadily more isolated and finding it increasingly difficult to interpret and understand social interaction. It is no surprise that many visual artists who have suffered mental disorders, like depression or anxiety, have channelled their experiences of these pathologies into their work. “If love belongs to the poet and fear to the novelist, then loneliness belongs to the photographer,” declared the writer Hanya Yanagihara in her foreword to the 2016 exhibition titled “Loneliness belongs to the photographer,” curated for the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco. 

The media, certain audiovisual works and much-hyped photojournalism exhibitions have contributed to creating an image of the photographer as someone who places the camera between themselves and the event, an agent whose presence is felt through their passive intervention. In this chimeric vision, the photographer is also a kind of busybody, a snoop, a witness. But this reality of photography is one that seeks spectacle and entertainment, and loses sight of the photographer’s shrewd eye, precision and perseverance. One is the specularisation of an event, the other is the revelation of an accident, an instant which is not born from a predilection for exhibition, but is rather deemed by the photographer to be appropriate and timely. Coming back to Sontag, “A photograph is not just the result of an encounter between an event and a photographer; picture-taking is an event in itself.” But to achieve this communion between photographer and the photographed, the former must take on the condition of invisibility.

The photographer recedes in some way, becoming a vestige of an event they themselves created; they can see others and their surroundings, but not themselves. Anonymous and alone, they are able to see what others overlook. That ability to step back is what enables a good photographer to see what passes others by. The photographer removes themselves to lend visibility to the other. This “other”, may on occasion serve as their own reflection, whether it be a beautifully lit corner, an empty road, a roadside motel or an unmade bed. 

A sufferer of depression or anxiety can be paralysed by the most banal decisions. In her book, “Exposure. An essay on the anxiety epidemic,” Olivia Sudjic writes: “In those with anxiety disorders the fight or-flight (or freeze) response is overactive. It perceives threats where there may be none. The symptoms, by contrast, are very real.” A person with depression is predisposed to predicting defeat and doubting any prospect of reward, causing them to make decisions that avoid precisely what would make them feel better. This paralysis, together with a lonely person’s seclusion, becomes gradually more intense, plunging them into a vicious circle of isolation. And here is where the photographer’s primal urge to take photographs is brought into play. 

Laing concludes her revealing book with the declaration that “there are so many things that art can’t do. All the same, it does have some extraordinary functions (...) It does have a capacity to create intimacy; it does have a way of healing wounds, and better yet of making it apparent that not all wounds need healing and not all scars are ugly.” “Loneliness is personal and it is also political,” concludes Laing. And although the scars left by mental disorders are so often invisible, we need to find a way of ensuring they are seen, in order to put an end to their stigmatisation. It is tempting to romanticise art’s therapeutic properties, or speak about how it enabled Borja to hit the road and how he found healing in his photography. If only it were that simple. But that would mean falling into the trap of banalisation and the misguided belief that severe disorders like clinical depression can be cured by eating well and daily exercise. Prescribing yourself a visit to a museum or taking photographs are not guaranteed solutions for mental stability. It is tremendously harmful to idealise the influence of these things, but neither can we ignore the fact that thanks to his camera, Borja was able to keep doing what he could no longer do in his day-to-day life, in other words: take decisions. 

Getting into a car, driving and finding a suitable location with the right light. It all seems perfect. Now, mentally visualising the photo, stopping and looking for the ideal place to set up the tripod, looking through the viewfinder, measuring the light, pressing the shutter button. So many decisions for such a small final gesture. A wave of satisfaction ripples down your spine as your camera screen reveals the perfect match between the vision of your mind’s eye and the photographic image. The excitement just before the click of the shutter contrasts sharply with the sense of unease and anxiety when the photograph is nothing more than a mental construct, mere phantasmagoria. The instant is captured, turned into the past, that precise moment saved as if it were a visual file tracing a direct line back to a specific moment in time.

In Disorder, Borja Ballbé draws inspiration from the great American road photographers, like Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Stephen Shore or, their contemporary counterpart, Alec Soth. Images verging on the banal of brothels, roadside bars, deserted gas stations, empty tables, tall glasses or impersonal bedrooms, all offering a meticulous vision of a process of self-awareness transferred in those instants that are frozen in time. A personal narrative that transcends the intimate to become a universal tale of loneliness, of the human tendency to hanker after meaning, to keep running towards an answer we believe is waiting around the next bend in the path. The truth lies on the other side of that closed curve. A landscape emptied of humanity which feeds off the same dismal places that prey on the photographer: landscapes devoid of romanticism, centred compositions, neutral tones, a tale of invisibility that sways between the banal and the sublime. The photographer’s vision can exalt what is ugly or grotesque, giving it the power to move and making it an image capable of offering solace.  

“Loss - says Olivia Laing - is a cousin of loneliness. They intersect and overlap, and so it’s not surprising that a work of mourning might invoke a feeling of aloneness, of separation. Mortality is lonely.” The reverberation of loss is keenly present in the photographer’s self-written epilogue, in which he steps out of the shadows, leaving aside his invisibility.

The images of his father are a reminder of the path of life, the unabating passage of time, the journey upon which our bodies are embarked towards decay, debilitation and, finally, death. But the image remains, and through it we can relive our stories. When we grieve, it is not only our loss that we mourn, but, as Didion points out “we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all.” 

Showing mental illness or grief means giving visibility to something that engenders shame; opening a window or lighting up a corner that had been left in the dark. It means seeking solace in those images and exalting experience. It means exposing the wound that cannot be healed and showing how the scar it has left behind is not so ugly after all.  

This may seem a sombre or sorrowful ending, but grief and mourning pave the way to new stories, new journeys to set foot on. As Miguel de Unamuno wrote in “The Tragic Sense of Life”: “It is not enough to cure the plague, we must learn to weep for it. Yes, we must learn to weep! Perhaps that is the supreme wisdom.”

This project is dedicated to all my friends and family who accompanied me on this journey.

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