Submission

My friend was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. We’ve known each other for over 30 years and stayed connected enough to always remember where the last conversation ended, how to pick it up and rethink it all from zero to fight our Pascalienne condition: inconstancy-boredom-anxiety. When Sandrine was diagnosed, the future became more present than the present itself. I was helpless, worried, and also relieved to have returned to Paris now after a decade abroad. I could be by her side, or meet at the hospital and record what the doctors said in case we froze when confronted with some shocking pieces of information. While in the waiting room, I began to photograph the rails in the hallway, the metal arms of a stretcher. I said I could try to document this episode of her life with details that only we would recognize. She fully agreed.  Step by step, through the camera, she and I adopted this cancer. Making these photographs gave us a truth that took us away from its sordid reality; it transformed anguish and exhaustion into expressions of love and friendship. For now, this project, to which these pictures belong, gives us hope, energy, patience as we wait for Sandrine to be cured