This is The Place

When Jay first met Imre, Jay’s dad was dying of cancer and he’d only just kicked the booze. Imre smelt like an old sock and could argue with him about anything, but in his own way he helped Jay be a bit happier. As they hitchhiked together across Norway, they ate by fishing food out of dumpsters and spent their nights sleeping in bus shelters. They made it to the Arctic together, and then they never saw each other again.

That was five years after Jay walked to Spain, and six months after his attempted drive across Africa. This is The Place is a record of these journeys: a winding narrative composed of twelve portraits of different places and the people residing within them. It is a story about the human; whether in Sudan, France, Kenya or Ireland, This is The Place explores the commonalities between us. It is proof of the kindness of strangers, a meditation on pilgrimage and a record of a young man’s numerous, failed attempts to change.

By proxy, J S May has also documented a world now gone; a world taken for granted but with evermore tangible cracks. Taking place before Trump, Brexit and the pandemic, This is The Place chronicles the end of an era and the first movements of a new global trajectory. Whether being picked up by Neo Nazis while hitchhiking or walking the Camino de Santiago, May repeatedly finds himself within the inescapable context of the geopolitical climate of the time.