“Half of my Whole Life Was Just a Dream presents a series of interconnected moments, people and places, linked by commonalities of colour, texture, time or feeling. J offers their lens to the viewer, and in doing so, a unique perspective on time and memory. Are the subjects of these images connected by something external, or is it simply a construction of the photographer’s mind? Would one or the other offer more truth?

J invites the viewer to question connection, and how the stitching together of disparate images might reflect a broader understanding of the passage of time. Subjectivity is at its centre; it is rare to be able to share in something as ephemeral as an artist’s internal workings, but through expertly transcribing their perspective into images, and tying these images to one another like a string of their own thoughts, J does just this.

This book is biographical in the dreamiest of ways, capturing queerness and community (friends, lovers, self) in ways that are simultaneously intimate and unknowable. Prepare to find yourself in these pages too, or some rippling reflection; perhaps in the richness of a certain tone or the twist of a certain body on a midnight dance floor. There is a breadth to these images that cannot help but entrance the imagination.”

— Violet de Graauw