On Divorce: Portraits and voices of separation: a photographic project by Harry Borden

by The School of Life, Harry Borden (Photographer)

Overview

On Divorce: An illustrated guide to the challenges and joys of separation is the debut title in a new portrait photography series by The School of Life.

Photographer Harry Borden’s portraits of divorce offer a powerful and often unexplored emotional window into the hearts and private moments of this common modern journey.

The photographs and accompanying texts were captured and recorded over two years by the British photographer Harry Borden (himself divorced). This series of portraits aims to understand and normalize something a lot of us go through, with testimonies from the subjects themselves, and thoughts and observations that pull us toward compassion, identification, curiosity, self-reflection and empathy. 

The book also features an introduction by The School of Life. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781915087393
Publisher:	The School of Life
Publication date:	01/02/2024
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.71(w) x 7.76(h) x (d)

About the Author

The School of Life is a global organization helping people lead more fulfilled lives.

Through our range of life-changing books, gifts and stationery, we aim to prompt more thoughtful natures and help everyone to find resilience and self-understanding.

The School of Life is a rapidly growing international brand, with over 7 million YouTube subscribers, 354,000 Facebook followers, 309,000 Instagram followers and 172,000 Twitter followers.

The School of Life Press brings together the thinking and ideas of The School of Life creative team under the direction of series editor, Alain de Botton.

Read an Excerpt

Few of us are without some relationship to divorce: we may be the children, parents or grandparents of divorcees, the colleagues or friends; this may be what we went through a decade ago or what lies ahead of us for the 2030s or 40s; it might be what we are just concluding – at this very moment and in intense turmoil – or something that we will need to set in motion in the coming days. 

Divorcees are, like all of us, only grown-up children, stumbling in the dark, trying to make sense of their choices, beset by blind impulses, illuminated by occasional grace, human all too human. One of the best things we can do in the face of our difficulties is to turn pain into art – of a sort which others can refer to, at moments of particular isolation and befuddlement, to recover their poise and sense of community.

This documentary project insists that divorce should never be thought of as shameful, morally simple, abstract or even necessarily tragic. It is as much a part of who we are as love.

Editorial Reviews

"I always knew, from years of working with him, that Harry Borden was a great photographer but now it turns out he’s a great interviewer too. Maddening!"
-Lynne Barber - British journalist

"Harry Borden takes beautiful, clear, humane and, above all, informative photos. You know these people at once. In this book you also know their divorce traumas and triumphs. It is an essay in how to know each other better, how to be human."
-Bryan Appleyard CBE - Times Journalist and author

"I found it very moving, often in quite unexpected ways."
-Michael Peppiatt - British Art Historian and Author

From the Publisher