First and foremost, this is an ode to friendship. A friendship forged years ago between several boys living in the countryside surrounding the small village of Hoegaarden, Belgium. The loyalty and unwithering spirit of their camaraderie, as well as the picturesque scenery of plains and creeks that they were free to roam and explore, provided the ideal backdrop for Seppe Vancraywinkel (BE) to grow into the young romantic he is today.

As they have grown older and now left the place that once connected them in search of new ventures, Vancraywinkel imagines himself and his friends as moving through life inside a bubble that assumes form whenever they are together. In their togetherness he finds solace and refuge, for the bubble is impervious to demanding noise from the outside world.

Vancraywinkel’s year-long work Within the Bubble of Surroundings aims to document spontaneous moments in which both visual and affective traces of the bubble can be discerned. The selection offers insight into an evolving yet solid friendship in which notions of time, space, adulthood, masculinity, and intimacy are spontaneously and intuitively reconfigured in a playful manner.