We all belong here.

Transitioning from high school to university was very lonely for me. In high school, I already sometimes struggled with friendships. I had a few close friends but many of them were planning to move interstate for university, so I was excited to make more in university. Whenever I struggled with friendships in school, I would always be reassured that university was different. You’d be studying with people who chose the same course as you, so would be more similar and interested in the same things, and could also sit next to whoever you wanted unlike a classroom and hang out more than just afterschool. When I thought about the fun I’d have meeting new people who were more like me and having more time and freedom on my hands to hang out with them, I felt optimistic about the future.

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Graduating from high school was a huge transition. I no longer saw the friends I’d known for years and saw almost every day. Out of the few close ones I had, all but one moved interstate. I was happy for them. We called occasionally but not as much as I’d hoped to. When I got to university too, making friends was still difficult. Course units and timetables didn't always line up with other peoples which made it hard to see the same faces regularly. Sometimes I’d make friends, but they’d communicate and get closer on apps I didn’t use. Sometimes I’d make friends and it would go well for the semester and we’d have good chats during classes, but we’d fall out of contact after the semester finished. I didn’t feel like I had people I could connect with or rely on long term. This made me feel even more alone. My hopes of a better university experience were crushed.
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Sometimes, I didn't want to go to my tutorials. It made me anxious to walk into a room of strangers. I felt nervous and out of place. I liked university more than high school, but I missed the familiarity and comfort of my high school friends. Even people I wasn’t as close with in high school were at least familiar. The fear of not knowing anyone and the pressure to make new acquaintances each semester often made me want to just watch the lecture recordings at home, which only made me more isolated. COVID lockdowns were a whole other issue that magnified how isolated I was and made me feel so much worse. Eventually, I worked up the courage to join clubs at university and found one that was super welcoming. Finding friends who communicated on apps I used and trying to check in with my high school friends every now and then to keep a connection helped too.

The first image is a depiction of loneliness, isolation. One stuck with their own negative thoughts, accumulating. colourful displays collaboration, connection, positive emotions, how varying ideas, thoughts, opinions and aspirations can intertwine and flourish from each other.

The second image is a representation of my younger self in residential care facilities with reinforced brick walls, ‘counting walls’. sitting alone, counting the individual bricks on the wall, a coping mechanism

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Sagnika story (transcribed)

In between abundance and loneliness, I sit there in between the path not knowing where I belong. It's all blue, even the abundance, life and happiness seem to lack lustre and colour as you understand that even being in the crowd is all just a masked life.

So I choose to sit there in the middle of the path watching the “no moon” that doesn't seem to know its presence, watching the “fish” that is looking to swim to the other side but ahead to be a food for others.

Watching the “small bird” that has just come out of its cozy nest wanting to fly to join it's group that's flying high in the sky. Watching the “one single leaf” on the dry tree holding itself tight to it, to keep itself alive.

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Loneliness for me is the staggering coldness of an empty block of land in the evening, a rural kind of coldness knowing my friends have dispersed to Melbourne and surrounds. Loneliness is knowing this small rural town of mine is quiet and still, withdrawn and barely functioning with lack of funding and opportunity. I’m lonely when I look out the window, I’m lonely when I look in the mirror, I’m lonely in my innards and my stomach. I’m lonely in experiences. It’s this hungry thing, loneliness. It’s like wanting to constantly fill the emptiness, wanting some hot meal to consume and yet having nothing to swallow. It’s a kind of ache that corrodes you. I don’t want to be lonely anymore

There is something written in Dari the language of Afghanistan it means “how many times have we been born, that we are dying this much?” The picture depicts the amount of things that I have everywhere and in any part of me. The journey is different from me – Like how can I just fit in? How can I cope with what I am going through. There’s a lot that is going on.